On Friday 13 December 2024, at 5 p.m., the event will take place in the Conference Room of Building D on the campus in Piazzale Europa, Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statics:

“Can data save lives? How data analysis helped policy during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond” 

Dr. Vahè Nafilyan, UK Office for National Statistics - Deputy Director - Head of the Health Data and Analysis division

In times of national emergency, quantitative researchers worldwide provided crucial help to inform policymakers in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of those efforts led to new research avenues that remain extremely promising today.

Dr. Vahé Nafilyan will present some of the work conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK's National Statistical Institute, to inform the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Linking data from the 2011 and 2021 censuses to mortality data and a wide range of healthcare records, he led the development of a new data source used to monitor and understand inequalities in COVID-19 mortality and vaccination coverage. This work was awarded the Campion Award by the Royal Statistical Society, and Vahé himself was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to statistics and public health.

Vahé Nafilyan will also discuss how this unique data source was used post-pandemic to address new policy issues, such as health-related economic inactivity. By combining these data with tax records, he was able to measure the economic benefits of health treatments and interventions, clearly demonstrating the advantages of investing in improving population health.