Laura Dwyer-Lindgren

What attracted you to the health metrics field?

I have a minor in political science and spent a semester in Washington, DC, where I worked on immigration and health issues. One of my projects was researching state laws that affect immigrants’ access to health care. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me that you need more than just doctors for people to be healthy. You need people to be able to access the doctors and to be able to make healthy lifestyle decisions. I also studied social epidemiology as a part of my senior thesis and the way that a person’s socioeconomic status has an effect on his or her health beyond what you would expect from differences in access to health care.

What work are you doing at IHME?

I’m working in the Mortality group and am involved in a handful of projects. Most recently, I’ve been analyzing summary birth histories and complete birth histories in surveys to estimate child mortality. This seems fairly straightforward but has involved more steps than I originally imagined. There is a lot of data cleaning, especially attempting to differentiate between questions that have been left blank intentionally. There might be a blank because the questions are not applicable. For example, if a woman reports that she has never been pregnant, the interviewer will usually not bother to ask if she has given birth to any children. Answers might also be missing because a respondent refused to answer or the data were entered incorrectly. Also, the responses need to be checked for consistency. Do the reported age and the age calculated from date of birth compare? Are there any women who report more children surviving than they had given birth to?

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

I was really excited coming here because of the opportunity to apply what I’ve learned to an effort that will produce results. I am applying for the Master of Public Health program. My long-term plan is to earn a PhD in social epidemiology and work in an area that combines research with advocacy and that starts to answer some of these social status questions. When I came here, I didn’t expect to be doing mortality work, but I really like it, and I’m excited to see what I will have the opportunity to work on in the future.

Published Works