CSSS Seminar with Wakefield on an Improved Method to Calculate COVID-19 Deaths (10/18/23)
Posted: 10/12/2023 (CSDE Research)
CSDE Affiliate Jon Wakefield (Statistics and Biostatistics) will present research at the CSSS seminar on Wednesday, Oct. 18th at 12:30 in 409 Savery Hall and on zoom (register here). Estimating the true mortality burden of COVID-19 for every country in the world by age and sex is a difficult, but crucial, public health endeavor. Attributing deaths, direct or indirect, to COVID-19 is problematic. A more attainable target is the “excess deaths”, the number of deaths in a particular period, relative to that expected during “normal times”, and authors develop a model for this endeavor. The excess mortality requires two numbers, the total deaths and the expected deaths, but the former is unavailable for many countries, and so modeling is required for such countries. The expected deaths are based on historic data and authors develop a model for producing estimates of these deaths for all countries. They allow for uncertainty in the modeled expected numbers when calculating the excess. The methods described were used to produce the World Health Organization (WHO) excess death estimates. Initial estimates were aggregated across age and sex, but authors will outline progress towards producing disaggregated estimates.