IHME in the news

Join us on December 6, 2021 from 8:00 to 9:15 a.m. PST to celebrate the accomplishments of 2021 Roux Prize winner Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, and find out the winner of the GBD Emerging Researcher Award.

“This virus is going to be with us for a long time,” said Ali Mokdad, who models the future of infections, hospitalizations and deaths for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “We have to live with it and we have to go with the long haul.”

For firearm deaths totals and rates, CNN used the Global Burden of Disease database compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Firearm-related deaths include physical violence (homicide), self-harm (suicide) and unintentional injuries. While rates are preferable for cross-country comparisons, in the case of suicides we illustrated the totals to highlight the gap between the US and other countries.

The region has passed 1.5 million COVID-19 deaths for the pandemic and data compiled for WHO-Europe by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows the disease is now the number one cause of death across Europe and central Asia.

COVID-19 is today also the leading cause of death in Europe and Central Asia, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which does modeling for the WHO. 

According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, the lost output from premature deaths and morbidity due to air pollution accounted for economic losses of $28.8 billion and $8 billion, respectively, in India in 2019.

“Many of our physicians are at a breaking point,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor with the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “It’s not easy to be day in and day out in an emergency room, in an ICU, looking at someone who is dying because he or she is not vaccinated.”

 As per the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 estimates, air pollution is the cause of over 1.7 million deaths in India — that is over 1,900 deaths an hour.

Experts say that long-term exposure to toxic air can cause many common heart and lung diseases. According to the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Report, air pollution is one of the important risk factors for death in India in 2019, causing an estimated 1.67 million deaths.

Health officials have been bracing for the possibility of a surge in cases over the winter. The latest projection from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation warns of a worst-case-scenario where cases — fueled by seasonal spread and the delta variant — surge far higher than last winter. However, the projection currently expects cases to stay essentially flat in coming months. 

Using data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, which maintains a massive database of health statistics from around the world, researchers analyzed the number of deaths, years of life lost and mortality rates by sex and age groups of young people in 204 countries.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected about 863,000 total deaths from the coronavirus pandemic by March 2022. However, the CDC reports 762,994 people have already died in the U.S. from COVID-19. The IHME’s worst-case scenario projection predicts nearly 2 million coronavirus deaths by March 2022.

Back with us, Dr. Vin Gupta, critical care pulmonologist in Seattle, who has advised us on public health throughout this pandemic. He's also on the faculty at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

“We see increasing evidence in the northern hemisphere that the expected winter surge has started to unfold,” said Dr Christopher JL Murray, lead modeler at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, as he introduced a new forecast. “Reductions in cases and new infections and hospitalizations have stopped in the US and started to turn around.” IHME’s projection, which Murray described as “optimistic”, forecast 863,000 cumulative deaths from the pandemic by March 2022. Already, more than 765,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19. IHME’s worst-case scenario predicts hundreds of thousands more deaths, for more than 1m pandemic deaths by March 2022.

"The biggest threat on the science front has been the inability to deal with deliberate misinformation," said Theo Vos, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington....As we approach 2022, Vos highlights the importance of making vaccines available in low-to-middle income countries, funded by rich countries, which could delay or reduce the emergence of new escape variants. "The costs of which will easily weigh up against the negative economic consequence of inaction," he said.