Jon Wakefield

Work led by PhD students Qianyu Dong (qianyu313.github.io/qd33/), Yunhan Wu, Andrea Boskovic; and @jonwakeblue. ShinyApp version to come soon!

And while on this thread, more📦news: check out the new functions in *survey* package on SAE created by Peter Gao: cran.r-project.org/web/packages/s… These are wrappers for similar functions in *SUMMER* package, but tailored to users familiar with survey package.

@Yunhan_W & @jonwakeblue formalize a framework that accounts for urban/rural (U/R) 🏙️🏞️ stratification in unit-level SAE models based on household surveys 👉doi.org/10.1093/jrsssa… 🧵

The paper on the WHO excess mortality methods is out: projecteuclid.org/journals/annal… Thanks to my co-authors: @VictoriaKnutso, @aleshings, @ArielKarlinsky, William Msemburi. This is a snapshot of where we were, and the work continues...

Global estimation is a massive task – bugs will happen. So the question is, do you have a culture that allows you to publicly admit and correct mistakes. The WHO team under @jonwakeblue had this culture. The IHME, in this instance, had not.nature.com/articles/d4158…

Finally, Lancet published 5(!) letters of concern on the reliability of IHME's excess death estimates. Mistakes happen, but while flawed WHO estimates were publicly admitted & corrected within days, IHME dragged their feet for 10 months and still doesn't own the problems. 🧵

While on a summer visit at our Institute @YahsiaoYuan and @lee_fiorio started to work on a recently published paper co-authored by Jonathan Wakefield @UW and our Director @ezagheni. They propose a new method to combine digital data and official statistics. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

@RickCrawf Yes. Lots of caveats accompany ranking exercise (as we discuss), but the analysis does tell us something...

@jonwakeblue What's the dark grey country that has done really badly since late 2020? Bulgaria?

In the supplement to the WHO Nature paper nature.com/articles/s4158… we examine the relative excess mortality rate of the UK, as compared to 27 EU countries, by month. This in response to intense political debate, as we discuss.

@valmacsee Thanks Valerie! And Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you!

@jonwakeblue Congrats Jon and happy Xmas from Lyon!

WHO Nature paper on excess mortality for 194 countries is out: nature.com/articles/s4158…

@notcapnamerica Preen spirit

If Donald Trump had a fragrance what would it smell like?

Just a friendly reminder that the deadline to be fully considered for our Tenure-Track Assistant Professor position is today (10/24). apply.interfolio.com/110545

@peteragao and I have a new paper on variance smoothing in small area estimation (SAE) arxiv.org/abs/2209.02602 The models we propose should allow more widespread use of robust SAE models, particularly in the context of health indicators in low and middle income countries

@Yunhan_W and I have a new paper on how to acknowledge urban/rural stratification in small area estimation: arxiv.org/abs/2209.10619 We estimate spatial HIV prevalence in women of age 15-49 in Malawi using the stratification/aggregation method we propose

@Sondreus @AlexSelbyB Well done Sondre! Very impressive work

Just won the Future of Media award! Very happy to accept the award for data journalism together with @AlexSelbyB for "The pandemic's true death toll"

@ConnorGascoigne @TheresaRSmith @JulianFaraway Well done Connor!!!! And congratulations Theresa also!!!