Dennis Feehan, UC Berkeley

About the Seminar

Hundreds of millions of people live in places where most deaths are never formally recorded. The lack of vital records systems complicates efforts by scientists and policy makers to monitor, understand, and improve health.  For example, because of a lack of data, it is not possible to create high-quality estimates of excess death caused by COVID-19 in most of the world's lower and middle income countries. Until every person lives in a country with a vital records system, survey-based approaches for estimating adult mortality will be critical. Unfortunately, estimating mortality from a survey requires specialized techniques. The current state of the art---the sibling method---has been used more than 150 times but has not changed much in decades despite known weaknesses.  A newer method called the network method appears promising, but it has only been used once previously. In this paper, we use a large household survey (n=25,000) to test the network and sibling methods in a setting where estimates can be compared o high-quality vital records: 27 cities in Brazil.

About the Speaker

Dennis Feehan is a demographer and a quantitative social scientist. He is an Associate Professor of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests lie at the intersection of networks, demography, and quantitative methodology.

Seminar Format

Location IN PERSON: 1101 Morrill Hall.  We are requesting advanced registration so that we can track capacity.  Please use this link to RSVP.

Location ONLINE VIA ZOOM: Zoom Registration Link for those unable to attend in person.  Upon registration, you will receive an automatically generated email with the direct link for the seminar

COVID-19 Information

MPRC public events for Fall 2023 will be a mix of in person and online via Zoom.  For in person events, all event attendees must follow current protocols