Category Archives: Projections

Projections of global deaths from 2016 to 2060

Posted on May 10, 2022 by colinmathers

Sixteen years ago, I published a paper in PLoS Medicine with detailed projections of deaths by age, sex and cause for all regions of the world, from year 2002 to 2030.  That paper has proved very popular, with over 14,100 … Continue reading →

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New estimates of total global COVID-19 deaths from IHME

Posted on May 10, 2021 by colinmathers

A few days ago, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released estimates of total COVID-19 deaths for countries based on comparisons of total deaths from all causes during the pandemic period with the expected total deaths based on … Continue reading →

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Variations in cultural values across 105 countries in 2019

Posted on August 3, 2020 by colinmathers

Working for the World Health Organization over the last 20 years and dealing with national health authorities, I’ve been quite fascinated by the variations across cultures and countries in values and beliefs, and the huge influence they have on willingness … Continue reading →

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Machine learning projection model for Covid-19

Posted on May 31, 2020 by colinmathers

Youyang Gu, an independent data scientist, has created a statistical projection model for Covid-19 (https://covid19-projections.com/) that uses machine learning techniques to fit a classical SEIR infectious disease model to the data for daily confirmed cases and deaths, taking into account … Continue reading →

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COVID-19 projections and reality

Posted on May 6, 2020 by colinmathers

On 27th April, I posted some short-run projections of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The plots below show how the daily new cases per million population and deaths per million population compare with reality (at least the confirmed case rates and … Continue reading →

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COVID-19 short-run projections

Posted on April 27, 2020 by colinmathers

Purely statistical predictions of future trends in COVID-19 deaths or cases, even including predictive covariates, have been unable to make sensible forecasts that are not highly sensitive to slight additions of data. The only useful models have been the more … Continue reading →

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Critics agree that IHME COVID-19 projection model is flawed

Posted on April 18, 2020 by colinmathers

I downloaded the latest IHME update of its COVID-19 projections yesterday to do another evaluation. Their projections still look very problematic. Other disease modellers and epidemiologists are coming to the same conclusion. An article just published in Statnews was much … Continue reading →

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How useful are IHME projections of the coronavirus pandemic?

Posted on April 14, 2020 by colinmathers

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based at the University of Washington in Seattle, caused considerable alarm on 7 April when it released projections of Covid-19 deaths which predicted total deaths for the UK would be the highest … Continue reading →

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State-level trends and levels of child mortality in India 2000-2015

Posted on May 20, 2019 by colinmathers

I’ve been involved for nearly 20 years in the estimation of global, regional and national causes of child death under the age of 5, in collaboration with academic researchers and a number of WHO technical departments (new-estimates-of-the-causes-of-child-death-under-age-5).  This collaboration has … Continue reading →

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Are humans heating up the world?

Posted on January 10, 2019 by colinmathers

I was in Australia over Christmas-New Year period and the southern parts of the country were sweltering in a heat wave. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued its 2018 climate statement, revealing a record breaking run of rising temperatures. … Continue reading →

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