On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Leila Zia <le...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hey Dan, > > On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 3:02 AM, Dan Andreescu <dandree...@wikimedia.org> > wrote: > > >> So, I felt personally compelled in the case of Zika, and the confusing >> coverage it has seen, to offer to personally help. > > > Which aspect of the coverage are you referring to as confusing? > Well, so the first reports were that 3500 cases of microcephaly were linked to Zika in Brazil, since October. If you do the math, with Brazil's birth rate of 300,000 per year, 3500 for three months is incredibly high. The number went up to 4400 before it was discredited and the latest I read is that it's down to 404 [1] and there are claims of over-inflation. That same article talks about serious doubts that Zika even has anything to do with microcephaly. In reading around some more about the subject, it seems like a multi-variate analysis gone wrong. > > I can run queries, test hypotheses, and help publish data that could back >> up articles. Privacy of our editors is of course still obviously >> protected, but that's easier to do in a specific case with human review >> than in the general case. >> >> > > I'm up for brainstorming about what we can do and helping. Please keep > me in the loop. In general, given that a big chunk of our traffic comes > from Google at the moment, it would be great to work with the researchers > in Google involved in Google's health related initiatives to produce > complementary knowledge to what Google can already tell about Zika (for > example, this > <https://www.google.com/trends/story/US_cu_p-RCiVIBAAC37M_en>). I'll > reach out to the few people I know to get some more information. > Depending on what complementary knowledge we want to produce, working with > WikiProject Medicine can be helpful, too. > Cool, yeah, I'm nowhere close to knowledgeable on this, I can data-dog though :) [1] www.cbc.ca/news/health/microcephaly-brazil-zika-reality-1.3442580
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