The goal of the DZC study (Longitudinal Study of the Demographic Consequences of Zika & Covid-19) is to uncover both the immediate and long-term impacts of back-to-back novel infectious disease crises on women’s reproductive lives. The project involves unique, mixed-method data collection that includes the first population-based panel survey of women’s reproductive lives in Brazil.
Both DZC-1 and DZC-2 are funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). DZC-1 (R01HD091257) was centered on the consequences of the Zika epidemic; while DZC-2 (2R01HD091257) focuses on successive epidemics. In a large and diverse country with acute disparities, the study explores how women’s experiences and “scars” from past epidemics have influenced their reproductive lives before, during and beyond these crises – periods when social norms are in flux.
Since 2020, DZC’s intensive data collection has been following a panel of 4,000 women in Pernambuco, Brazil. These women have now spent a large portion of their reproductive years in back-to-back novel infectious disease crises—the Zika epidemic of 2015-2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025, an additional 2,000 were added to the panel with another sample of ~400 older women.
With the prediction of an “era of pandemics” characterized by the recurring emergence of new diseases and pandemic risks, DZC offers critical insights into the lasting, interconnected consequences of consecutive novel infectious disease crises on some of the most vulnerable populations, even when the disease contexts differ, with implications that extend beyond Brazil.