Joseph A. Hoisington

What attracted you to the health metrics field?

I did a summer semester abroad with the House of Commons in London, where I studied kids with ADHD in the public schools. I ended up doing some data work there and reading and learning about various mental and behavioral health problems. I realized the impact that these problems had on people’s lives, and the impact that a good health care program that actually addressed the illnesses directly could have.

What work are you doing at IHME?

I’m in the Effective Coverage group and have been studying vitamin A deficiency and the coverage of vitamin A supplementation. The problem is most widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. It can lead to lifelong problems, including blindness, and it can make you more susceptible to infectious diseases. One of the specific challenges we have with vitamin A is that it’s something that people have only paid attention to for the last 10 or 15 years. Our time-series data are a bit short, and we don’t have much data compared to other areas, so we have to make adjustments and come up with ways to fill both the gaps in time and the gaps in other information.

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

I hope to go to graduate school in math after my time at IHME. It’s been good learning how quantitative sciences can be used to understand both health problems and the effect of technologies and interventions at the population level. It’s also been good practice identifying the gaps between the data you have and the information you’d like to have in the end. In math, there are no data problems. Everything in math is theoretical. But in practical, real world research, you need to get certain information from data in order to come up with an answer. At IHME, if you are having trouble finding an answer, there is a lot of guidance. Whenever you have a question, everybody is willing to help you out. But you also have more leeway to try things on your own than you would in other settings. The faculty and the rest of the research team are helping us think about the important questions in global health. I am really having a broader and deeper educational experience than I have had before.

Published Works