Sari
"Dünyada her ÅŸey için, medeniyet için, hayat için, baÅŸarı için, en hakiki mürÅŸit ilimdir, fendir."
"Science is the most real guide for civilization, for life, for success in the world."
Health Economist
LECTURE SLIDES & NOTES
Basics of R: Exploring the Human Mortality Database
Summer School ‘Harmonising and Visualising Data in Research on Health Inequalities’
Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague
August 25, 2025
​
This introductory lecture introduced participants to the fundamentals of R and RStudio through a hands-on workflow with the Human Mortality Database (HMD).
The session covered:
-
Getting started with R & RStudio
-
Importing and inspecting HMD mortality data
-
Core data structures and basic data manipulation
-
A focused exercise on mortality differences (“Who dies more and when?”)
-
First steps in using AI tools to support R coding
-
​
By the end of the lecture, participants had written their first R scripts, explored historical mortality data, and built a foundation for later modules on data harmonization and visualization.
Intergenerational transmission of health and behaviors
Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’
November 8, 2024
​
This lecture presents the complex mechanisms of nature and nurture in persisting health and health behaviors across multiple generations: how health and related behaviors are passed on between generations, emphasizing their historical context. It will illustrate both social and biological pathways, including genetic inheritance and epigenetic modifications, as well as the influence of parental behaviors, socioeconomic status, and cultural practices on the health outcomes of the offspring. This lecture will exemplify research findings on how early life experiences health, nutritional status during childhood, and adverse experiences in childhood health over successive generations across different historical periods, including the effects of pandemics, famines, and wars. The lecture also discusses how public policy can mitigate or worsen these intergenerational effects.
Objectives of the lecture/ workshop:
-
To explore the historical impacts of major events and social changes on the health of successive generations.
-
To understand some basic mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of health and behavior.
-
To introduce the necessity of using historical, individual-level datasets and discuss potential methodological approaches for studying intergenerational health transmission over time.
Instrumental variables in economics: Current standards for validity and common pitfalls
Trail Lecture, PhD defense
School of Business, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø
November 8, 2024
​
The lecture introduces the problem of endogeneity in econometric models and presents instrumental variables (IV) as a key tool for causal identification. It reviews the assumptions required for valid instruments, common pitfalls such as weak or invalid instruments, and recent methodological innovations. The session highlights both the strengths and limitations of IV methods, offering a critical overview of their role in empirical economics.
Grandparents Matter: Multigenerational transmission of health and health behaviors
PhD defense
School of Business, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø
November 8, 2024
​
This thesis, written in health economics and awarded a PhD in Social Sciences, examines the multigenerational transmission of health and risky health behaviors with a focus on grandparents. Using historical and contemporary data, it highlights how economic hardship, smoking, and neglect shape health inequalities across generations and underscores the need to consider grandparents in health policy.
