University of Washington Biostatistics PhD student Leah Andrews received the Most Outstanding Written Paper Award from the 2024 Western North American Region of the International Biometric Society (WNAR) student paper competition for her paper "Semiparametric Methods for Evaluating COVID-19 Vaccine Regimens in Test-Negative Design Studies with Missing Data."
"Vaccines are essential for reducing the burden of COVID-19 and must be continuously evaluated and updated to ensure sufficient protection against COVID-19 in various populations and geographical regions over time,” said Andrews.
“This paper describes a statistical method that estimates the causal effect of a vaccine regimen on COVID-19 using conveniently collected data from individuals with COVID-like symptoms who seek SARS-CoV-2 testing (i.e., a test-negative design study). Our statistical method provides flexible, data-driven confounding adjustment and can handle missing data in individuals’ vaccination status."
UW faculty member and Fred Hutch researcher Peter Gilbert and UW Statistics PhD student Lars van der Laan collaborated with Andrews on the paper.
The award, announced at the WNAR annual conference in June in Fort Collins, Colorado, included a certificate of recognition, textbook, and a $500 cash prize.
