Covid-19 Excess Mortality Symposium

Covid-19 Excess Mortality Symposium

Global workshop on COVID-19's impact on mortality hosted by the Centre for Global Health Research and the University of Toronto

By Centre for Global Health Research www.cghr.org

Date and time

Tuesday, June 11 · 8:30am - 5:30pm EDT

Location

Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute

209 Victoria Street Toronto, ON M5B 1T8 Canada

Agenda

8:30 AM - 9:15 AM

Registration and breakfast reception, Opening

9:15 AM - 10:15 AM

Excess Mortality and the World Mortality Dataset: Updates and Challenges

Ariel Karlinsky

Comparing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic between countries or across time is difficult because the reported numbers of cases and deaths can be strongly affected by testing capacity and reporting...

10:15 AM - 10:30 AM

Short talk

10:30 AM - 10:45 AM

Break

10:45 AM - 11:45 AM

Panel: Increasing the use of mortality data for disease surveillance

11:45 AM - 12:00 PM

Short talk

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Lunch

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Modelling excess mortality at sub-national level

Marta Blangiardo

In this talk I will present some work I have done on spatial and spatio-temporal modelling of mortality data during the COVID-19 pandemic. I will first show the first comprehensive analysis of the sp...

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Panel: Strengthening data collection

3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

Break

3:15 PM - 4:15 PM

Estimating Global and Country-Specific Excess Mortality by Age and Sex

Jon Wakefield

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...

4:15 PM - 4:30 PM

Short talk

4:30 PM - 4:45 PM

Short talk

4:45 PM - 5:15 PM

Group discussion

5:15 PM - 5:30 PM

Close

About this event

  • 9 hours

The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to have caused nearly 15 million excess deaths globally by the end of 2021, more than twice the number of COVID-specific deaths reported. The Omicron waves in 2022 likely added to this total. In contrast to incidence and prevalence data, mortality data are high quality and complete. For most countries weekly or monthly age-sex specific death counts are released within six months and in many cases are available subnationally. These data have great potential for understanding epidemiology of infectious diseases, tracking the state of infectious diseases in the population, and assessing the performance of the public health and medical systems. This workshop will assemble the leading scholars on excess mortality estimation to both share their methodological expertise and to discuss the potential for improved collection and expanded use of mortality data.

The workshop will involve in-depth (45 minute) talks by the international invited speakers, a series of shorter presentations by several Canadian scientists, and panel discussions by influential practitioners and decision makers. Ample time will be allocated to group discussions, with a discussant giving a prepared response to each of the main presentations.

Contact

Centre for Global Health Research: cghr@unityhealth.to

Speakers

  • Jon Wakefield (U Washington)
  • Ariel Karlinsky (Hebrew University, Israel)
  • Marta Blangiardo (Imperial College, London)

Organizers

  • Patrick Brown (UT Statistics and Unity Health Toronto)
  • Monica Alexander (UT Sociology and UT Statistics)
  • Prabhat Jha (UT DLSPH and Unity Health Toronto)

Practical Information

  • The symposium will take place at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria St, Toronto, ON M5B1T8
  • Registration: Second floor.
  • Morning: KRC Allan Waters Auditorium.
  • Afternoon: LKS 136.


  • Lunch and coffee breaks will be provided.

Related Publications

  • Jha, P., P. E. Brown, and R. Ansumana (2022). “Counting the global COVID-19 dead”. In: The Lancet 399.10339, pp. 1937–1938. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00845-5.
  • Knutson, V., S. Aleshin-Guendel, A. Karlinsky, W. Msemburi, and J. Wakefield (2023). “Estimating global and country-specific excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic”. In: The Annals of Applied Statistics 17.2, pp. 1353–1374. doi: 10.1214/22-AOAS1673.
  • Konstantinoudis, G., V. Gómez-Rubio, M. Cameletti, M. Pirani, G. Baio, and M. Blangiardo (2023). “A Workflow for Estimating and Visualising Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Pandemic”. In: The R Journal 15.2, pp. 89–104.
  • Msemburi, W., A. Karlinsky, V. Knutson, S. Aleshin-Guendel, S. Chatterji, and J. Wakefield (2023). “The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic”. In: Nature 613.7942, pp. 130– 137.

Tags

Organized by

Centre for Global Health Research www.cghr.org

The Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR) is an independent, not-for-profit organization co-sponsored by Unity Health Toronto and the University of Toronto. Founded in 2002 on the principle that population health science innovations and data are key to improving global health, CGHR was created to conduct nationwide, large-scale epidemiological studies. CGHR’s mission is to lead high-quality public health research that advances global health for all, with particular attention to the world’s poorest populations.