India has called into question the methodology used by the WHO to calculate its death toll from Covid-19. Jon Wakefield, a professor of statistics and biostatistics at the University of Washington who was one of those involved in the modelling for the WHO, released a statement that explained the methodology in detail and rebutted the claims made by the Indian government about the veracity of the modelling.

Jon Wakefield, UW professor of statistics and biostatistics who played a key role in building the model used for estimates of the World Health Organization global data of COVID death estimates is quoted in this story and says the numbers represent what statisticians and researchers call “excess mortality” — the difference between all deaths that occurred and those that would have been expected to occur under normal circumstances.

Ellen Graham, a biostatistics PhD student at the University of Washington School of Public Health, has been awarded the Gertrude M. Cox Scholarship by the American Statistical Association (ASA).

“It’s a multivitamin industry with really limited data to support their use,” said Dr. Garnet Anderson ('89), director of the Public Health Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “At least not here in the U.S. where we have access to high-quality foods.”

Over the course of six months, five student teams from the University of Washington School of Public Health, mentored by faculty from the Department of Biostatistics, partnered with regional health organizations to tackle significant real-world problems.