Covid-19 Excess Mortality Symposium

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.

Centre for Global Health Research: [email protected]

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

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

• 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.

• 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.

Event Venue

Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, Toronto, Canada