Papers

Chimeric Forecasting: An experiment to leverage human judgment to improve forecasts of infectious disease using simulated surveillance data

We presented 3000 humans with simulated surveillance data about the number of incident hospitalizations from a current and two past seasons, and asked that they predict the peak time and intensity of the underlying epidemic

Assessing Human Judgment Forecasts in the Rapid Spread of the Mpox Outbreak: Insights and Challenges for Pandemic Preparedness

We collected – between May 19, 2022 and July 31, 2022 – 1275 forecasts from 442 individuals of six questions about the mpox outbreak where ground truth data are now available. Individual human judgment forecasts and an equally weighted ensemble were evaluated, as well as compared to a random walk, autoregressive, and doubling time model.

The Watermelon Meow Meow Outbreak: Enhancing Public Health Education Through Real-World Experience, Statistical Programming, and Infectious Disease Modeling

The Watermelon Meow Meow (WMM) outbreak is a cumulative experience that teaches upper-level undergraduate/graduate students about infectious disease dynamics by asking students to: participate in a fictitious outbreak

A Cluster-Aggregate-Pool (CAP) Ensemble Algorithm for Improved Forecast Performance of influenza-like illness

We propose a novel Cluster-Aggregate-Pool or `CAP’ ensemble algorithm that first clusters together individual forecasts, aggregates individual models that belong to the same cluster into a single forecast (called a cluster forecast), and then pools together cluster forecasts via a linear pool.

Early human judgment forecasts of human monkeypox, May 2022

These results suggest that a human judgment forecasting platform can quickly generate probabilistic predictions for targets of public health importance

Aggregating Human Judgment Probabilistic Predictions of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Transmission, Burden, and Preventive Measures

Our work shows that aggregated human judgment forecasts for infectious agents are timely, accurate, and adaptable, and can be used as a tool to aid public health decision making during outbreaks.

Aggregating probabilistic predictions of the safety, efficacy, and timing of a COVID-19 vaccine

To support public health decision making, we solicited trained forecasters and experts in vaccinology and infectious disease to provide monthly probabilistic predictions from July to September of 2020 of the efficacy, safety, timing, and delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Adaptively stacking ensembles for influenza forecasting with incomplete data

Needing no data at the beginning of an epidemic, an adaptive ensemble can quickly train and forecast an outbreak, providing a practical tool to public health officials looking for a forecast to conform to unique features of a specific season.

An expert judgment model to predict early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States

This work highlights the importance that an expert linear pool could play in flexibly assessing a wide array of risks early in future emerging outbreaks, especially in settings where available data cannot yet support data-driven computational modeling.

Aggregating predictions from experts: a scoping review of statistical methods, experiments, and applications

Download Paper Abstract Forecasts support decision making in a variety of applications. Statistical models can produce accurate forecasts given abundant training data, but when data is sparse or rapidly changing, statistical models may not be able to make accurate predictions. Expert judgmental forecasts—models that combine expert-generated predictions into a single forecast—can make predictions when training data is limited by relying on human intuition. Researchers have proposed a wide array of algorithms to combine expert predictions into a single forecast, but there is no consensus on an optimal aggregation model....