Name and Surname
Marko Galjak
Affiliation
The Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade
Contact email
galjak@gmail.com
Short Biography
Marko Galjak, PhD is a demographer and data scientist. In addition to his doctorate in demography, Marko also holds two Master’s degrees – one in demography and another in computing in the social sciences. In his scientific research career, he has published papers in the areas of mortality, public health, aging, philanthropy, social network analysis, and ethics. Marko is an activist at heart and has been engaged in the civil sector since his high school days. The focus of Marko’s activist career is on developing technologies that empower the civil sector.
Research abstract
Youth mortality in Serbia is an often-overlooked problem. This research quantifies premature mortality in Serbia, namely the total premature mortality as well as mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and air pollution by fine PM2.5 particles. The results show that Serbia loses over half a million years of potential life annually. PM2.5 air pollution has the greatest impact on municipalities in Vojvodina. Part of the research results are recommendations related to: changing the paradigm when it comes to population policy (from pronatalism to one that puts health in the focus of population policy), revision of strategic documents, focusing on prevention and opening data as a cheap way to encourage research, informing and educating the general public.