Applied Statistics Workshop by Jens Robben
14:30 - 17:00 : "The short-term association between environmental variables and mortality: evidence from Europe" - Jens Robben
Jens Robben (University of Amsterdam)
The short-term association between environmental variables and mortality: evidence from Europe
Abstract:
In this workshop, we study the short-term association between environmental factors, i.e., weather and air pollution characteristics, and weekly mortality rates using fine-grained, publicly available data. Hereto, we develop a mortality modeling framework where a baseline model describes a region-specific, seasonal trend observed within the historical weekly mortality rates. Using a machine learning algorithm, we then explain deviations from this baseline using features constructed from environmental data that capture anomalies and extreme events.
- Session 1 (2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m) - C115: We provide the technical details of our proposed modeling framework, and apply it to European NUTS 3 regions (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, level 3). Our findings highlight that temperature-related features are most influential in explaining mortality deviations from the baseline over short time periods. Furthermore, we find that environmental features prove particularly beneficial in southern regions for explaining elevated levels of mortality, and we observe evidence of a harvesting effect related to heat waves.
- Session 2 (4 p.m. - 5 p.m.) - CV09: Through a hands-on case study in R, participants will implement a simplified version of our modeling framework. Through various code examples and illustrations, we demonstrate data processing steps, calibrate both the baseline and machine learning models, and extract key model insights.
