Andrew Noymer - University of California, Irvine

What's flu got to do with it? Changes in the age-structure of influenza mortality during pandemics.

    Date:  09/19/2013 (Thu)

    Time:  3:30pm- 5:00pm

    Location:  Seminar will be held on-site: Gross Hall - 270

    Organizer:  Ken Land/Vickie Bowes


Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.

    All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.

    8:30am - Breakfast: Giovanna Merli (will meet in hotel lobby)

    9:30am - Seth Sanders

   10:00am - Jake Fisher

   10:30am - Ryan Brown

   11:00am - OPEN

   11:30am - Angie O'Rand (Allen 102)

   12:15pm - Amar Hamoudi

   12:45pm - DuPRI students: Bryce Bartlett

    1:15pm - Join postdoc lunch

    2:15pm - Jessica Ho

    2:45pm - Duncan Thomas

    3:15pm - Seminar preparation

    3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)

    6:00pm - dinner with Ken Land


    Additional Comments:  Abstract: Influenza is a disease that is associated with both old-age mortality and with occasional severe episodes known as pandemics. Interestingly, however, during pandemics, although mortality increases, the age-mortality pattern becomes less flu-like, shifting younger. This talk will outline the virological and demographic reasons for these mortality age shifts during influenza pandemics. I introduce the use of a cause-specific Gompertz paramerization to quantify the age shifts in mortality, using data from the two most recent pandemics (2009, H1N1 and 1968-69, H3N2) as well as the interpandemic periods (pre-1968, H2N2, and 1969-2009, H3N2, H3N2/H1N1). In short, influenza mortality affects the elderly, but the main policy concern about influenza is pandemic preparedness, when mortality skews younger; this talk will outline how and why.