Marlena Bannick

What attracted you to the health metrics field?

I began my undergraduate studies in public health because I was attracted to the preventive, population-level perspective of improving health globally. The quantitative methods in public health were particularly interesting to me because I saw how I could merge my passion for health with skills in math and statistics. As I pursued various research opportunities in quantitative public health, I found myself always coming back to the basics: how do we measure health and all of its influences in the most accurate way possible? The health metrics field equips me with the skills and methods to answer that question for any population health-related scientific question of interest.

What work are you doing at IHME?

At IHME, I work on the Disease Estimation team for the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD). Specifically, I model the prevalence and incidence of injuries for every country and subnational region, and the years lived with disability (YLDs) due to injuries. Additionally, I work on improving our estimation methodology for the injury causes. Injuries is one of the three broad categories of causes that result in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and it includes everything from road injuries to assault by firearms. For GBD 2017, we are for the first time producing estimates of the incidence of sexual violence.

How do you think your experience at IHME will contribute to your future work?

The quantitative skills and global health understanding that I will gain at IHME are invaluable. I am constantly exposed through seminars and interactions with colleagues to projects at IHME that broaden my global health knowledge base and inspire my ambitions in health metrics. I’m also pursuing a master’s in biostatistics to complement my work at IHME. After the Post-Bachelor Fellowship program, I plan to stay involved with the health metrics field, developing statistical methods and metrics to answer global health questions.