Tuesday, Aug 6: 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
3877
Late-Breaking Session
Oregon Convention Center
Room: CC-251
Collecting reliable and verifiably accurate data is almost always challenging, but the challenges are far greater when attempting to do so in the context of some conflict. The session features colleagues who will discuss their efforts to collect quality data from conflicts in regions that include Tigray, Kenya, and Afghanistan. Each talk will include a discussion about the purpose of/motivation for attempting to collect data in their respective conflicts, the challenges they faced in these data collection efforts, and the strategies they developed and used for overcoming these difficulties. This session is timely because i) each of the conflicts is current and has recently been hot, ii) the incidence of regional conflicts has increased over the past few years, and iii) statisticians are being called on far more frequently to document conditions and contribute to relief and resolution efforts in conflict regions. Furthermore, this topic squarely supports the theme of the 2024 Joint Statistical meetings (Statistics and Data Science: Informing Policy and Countering Misinformation). Those attending the session will learn about ways to overcome challenges in data collection under the difficult conditions of war (and hopefully under less stressful and challenging conditions).
Applied
Yes
Presentations
Estimating mortality during armed conflict, a key component of the Global Burden of Disease Study, presents unique challenges due to population displacement, limited access to affected areas, and the breakdown of vital registration systems. This talk will explore innovative data sources and cutting-edge analysis methods developed to tackle these challenges. Despite the obstacles, these methods can provide reliable estimates of conflict-related deaths and excess mortality. The presentation will also examine alternative approaches, including survey-based methods, demographic modeling, and triangulation across multiple data sources. Attendees will gain insights into how these techniques are transforming our understanding of mortality in conflict zones and discuss the future of mortality estimation in these critical settings.
There has been a major breakthrough in preventing gender-based violence. In this talk, we will focus on how a small team of statisticians was involved with the early stages of an academic discipline that is transitioning from predominantly advocacy and theory into a discipline grounded in empirical science. We will discuss the intervention our team has studied and sketch out the two cluster-randomized trials we completed in the informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya. We will also describe the handful of methodological innovations we've had to make in order to do our work: (i) randomization in the presence of interference, (ii) a potential outcome framework for differential measurement error (e.g., addressing bias from self-reports of sensitive outcomes), and (iii) developing a model-selection framework using community-input.
Beyond immediate loss of life and physical destruction, violent conflict affects societies in myriad ways. Few avenues exist to generate comprehensive, fine-grained data under poor security conditions. Vulnerable populations, such as displaced people, are often under-represented in surveys and official statistics. These difficulties in data collection complicate efforts to study the consequences of conflict and the design of policies to assist vulnerable individuals. This talk will discuss the use of anonymized high-frequency mobile phone data to measure migration, and satellite imagery to infer the timing of agricultural harvests and map illicit cultivation in Afghanistan. Together, these enable us to study the impact of violence on internal displacement and seasonal labor flows, and the local socioeconomic conditions surrounding illicit cultivation. These examples illustrate the potential for non-traditional data sources to facilitate research and policy making in conflict settings.
Conflict, a pervasive and often destructive force, has far-reaching consequences on the global stage. In the quest to understand and mitigate such disputes, data emerges as a crucial tool, providing insights that can guide effective interventions. Universities and professional associations, with their reservoirs of knowledge and expertise, are uniquely positioned to influence conflict resolution. Yet, the question remains: should these institutions maintain neutrality, or actively engage in addressing conflicts head-on? We will discuss some experiences considering the war on the Tigray region of Ethiopia from 2020-2022. The role of universities and professional associations in preventing and mitigating conflict is a complex and multifaceted issue. As centers of knowledge and ethical guidance, these institutions have the potential to make significant contributions to peacebuilding efforts. It is imperative that they embrace this challenge, actively participating in the discourse and actions necessary to resolve conflicts and uphold the principles of justice and international law. The path forward is one of engagement, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to the betterment of society. We will investigate the role of local and international academic and professional entities in documenting, analyzing and providing policy input. We will use our article in the Significance magazine "Statistics in a Civil War: The Case of the Tigray Health System' https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article/19/4/8/7029603?login=false to provide further insight about the challenges we faced as researchers.