Monday13Feb 2017
Science Forum with Talithia Williams, Ph.D.
"The Eyes Have It: Modeling Cataract Surgical Rates for developing countries"
Monday, February 13, 2017
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST
Speaker: Talithia Williams, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College
Talk Summary:
Cataract remains the leading cause of blindness in Africa and planning for its treatment is a priority of the World Health Organization.
The cataract surgical rate (CSR), the number of operations done per million population, is a convenient indicator for planning and monitoring. However, estimating what the CSR needs to be to eliminate blindness requires one to take into account a number of factors and assumptions.
The recently developed Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey uses a population-proportional-to-size sampling technique to select a representative group of people over 50 years old to receive a standard eye exam. We use current data from RAAB surveys in Africa to model the epidemiology of cataract and to estimate cataract incidence at different age levels.
In this talk, Dr. Williams describes her method of estimating incidence from prevalence and how this information can be used to help set target CSRs for various geographical locations in Africa, taking into account important differences among populations.
Talk Summary:
Cataract remains the leading cause of blindness in Africa and planning for its treatment is a priority of the World Health Organization.
The cataract surgical rate (CSR), the number of operations done per million population, is a convenient indicator for planning and monitoring. However, estimating what the CSR needs to be to eliminate blindness requires one to take into account a number of factors and assumptions.
The recently developed Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey uses a population-proportional-to-size sampling technique to select a representative group of people over 50 years old to receive a standard eye exam. We use current data from RAAB surveys in Africa to model the epidemiology of cataract and to estimate cataract incidence at different age levels.
In this talk, Dr. Williams describes her method of estimating incidence from prevalence and how this information can be used to help set target CSRs for various geographical locations in Africa, taking into account important differences among populations.
You can contact the event organizer, at regreen@chapman.edu.
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