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This paper is from Session 5C: Statistics and journalism

which comes under Topic 5: Statistics education and the wider society             Full topic list

(Monday 3rd, 14:00-15:30)

Challenges in modeling and communicating rare and emerging infectious diseases related to blood safety

Presenter

• Susie ElSaadany (Canada)

Abstract

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has unique experiences with new and emerging disease issues in blood Canadian crisis of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission through blood transfusion. To protect the Canadian public from risk, the government enacted restrictions on blood donation. Statisticians must provide an interpretation of the risk to decision makers that is within the realm of comprehension, so that they may effectively communicate risk information to the public. For the HCV, there was no information available for incidence and prevalence during the 1980s/early 1990s for the Canadian population. Estimating the blood borne infection of Canadians with HCV was crucial to the government’s decision regarding victim compensation. As this was a much publicized issue, it was Public Health Agency of Canada’s responsibility to meet the challenge of producing accurate figures in the face of little knowledge at the time.