IEU Seminar: Robert Aldridge

Title: The Global Burden of Disease Study: A 34-year journey to make the invisible visible.

Abstract: The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study is a systematic and collaborative effort to provide comprehensive and comparable health estimates worldwide. The GBD’s ability to provide a complete picture of health, even in data-scarce environments, has been instrumental in shifting global health priorities. In this talk, Rob will discuss the ongoing challenges and innovations, including the increasing use of electronic health record data in the GBD, the development of  methods to handle sparse and conflicting data, as well as the expanding collaborations with local and national policy makers that aim to turn GBD evidence into action. Rob will also highlight future directions in relation to his work at GBD, such as increasing subnational analyses in England and a focus on socially excluded groups.

Biography: Rob Aldridge is a Professor in the Department of Health Metrics Sciences at University of Washington and leads the Clinical Informatics team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), where he contributes to the Global Burden of Disease Study. His team acts as a steward of clinical data sources from across the globe, building data infrastructure that facilitates research and promotes best practices in data processing. Dr. Aldridge's research is dedicated to equitably improving the health of the public, particularly by using data science to make invisible populations visible. He works to understand the health needs of people experiencing homelessness, substance use, imprisonment, and migration. He was recently the Chief Investigator for the influential Virus Watch study, which provided critical data and research contributions to the COVID-19 pandemic response in the UK and globally. Rob qualified in medicine from University College London (UCL) in 2007. He trained as a public health physician in the UK and holds an MSc in Epidemiology from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2010) and a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology from UCL (2015).