
tom mcandrew (pi)
Principal Investigator; applied math, stats, human judgment, forecasting, infectious diseases
Principal Investigator; applied math, stats, human judgment, forecasting, infectious diseases
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
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.
These results suggest that a human judgment forecasting platform can quickly generate probabilistic predictions for targets of public health importance
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.
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.