VID Colloquium
What's flu got to do with it? The payoff of influenza studies for demography
Andrew Noymer, University of California
Date: Wed, 28 September 2011 , Time: 10:00 - 11:00
We review some of the major features of influenza mortality in the United States, 1959-2007, the period in which the most detailed data are available. Focus is on two areas, first, classification robustness across influenza and pneumonia over time. Second, we estimate 2-parameter Gompetrz models of winter pneumonia and influenza (P+I) mortality. We find that Gompertz is a good parameterization of P+I mortality rates, and that the 1968-69 H3N2 ("Hong Kong") pandemic (the only pandemic in our data, since 2009 data are not yet released) is a prominent feature in the evolution of P+I mortality in the last half-century. Some of this work is joint with Ann Nguyen (UCI) and Cécile Viboud (NIH).
About the presenter
Andrew Noymer is a demographer of health, with research interests in seasonal mortality in general, and influenza in particular. He received an AB in Biology from Harvard University, an MSc in Medical Demography from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he was also an NICHD and NIA trainee in demography. Since 2006, he has been an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine (jointly appointed with Public Health). Since 2006, he has also been affiliated with IIASA (2006-10 with the Institute's Health and Global Change Project, at at present with the World Population Program).