Gaussian Process Seminar Series

Spatial and spatio-temporal models in the time of COVID-19

Marta Blangiardo · Imperial College London

2022-03-28 · 16:00 UTC

Video

In this talk I will present some recent work I have done on spatial and spatio-temporal modelling of mortality data during the COVID-19 pandemic. I will first show the first comprehensive analysis of the spatio-temporal differences in excess mortality during 2020 across five European countries (Greece, Italy, England, Spain, Switzerland), using a population-based design on all-cause mortality data. Sex-specific weekly mortality rates for each area (NUTS3 regions) were estimated, based on a comparison period (2015-2019), while adjusting for age, localised temporal trends and the effect of temperature. Then, all-cause weekly deaths and mortality rates at the same spatial resolution were predicted for 2020, based on the modelled spatio-temporal trends, so that excess deaths could be estimated. Secondly, I will talk about a two-stage spatial model to quantify inequalities in excess mortality in people aged 40 years and older at the community level during the first year of the pandemic in England, Italy and Sweden.

Marta Blangiardo is a professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London, and leads the Biostatistics and Data Science theme of the Medical Research Council Centre for Environment and Health. Her main research interests are on the methodological aspects of environmental exposure estimation and on spatial and spatio-temporal models for disease mapping and for risk assessment.