Proud to have been awarded the IFCS Research Medal by the International Federation of Classification Societies, for fundamental contributions to the advancement of Classification, Clustering, Data Science and related topics ifcs2026.unimib.it/ifcs-researc...
Adrian Raftery
@adrianraftery.bsky.social
Statistician at UW developing methods for demography, climate change, cluster analysis, model selection & averaging.
Did the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement work? Statistical modeling showed that carbon intensity did improve, thanks to policy and technology. But this was canceled by global GDP growth. Explainer from the Royal Statistical Society Climate Change Task Force: rss.org.uk/resources/re...
Explainer: Did the Paris Climate Agreement work?
rss.org.uk
As heatwaves sweep across Europe, climate change is once again front and centre. But 10 years after the Paris Agreement, what do the numbers say? Both the modest improvements and significant challenges show the importance of stats in understanding climate progress. Read the latest CCTF explainer👇
Our paper, "A structured estimator for large covariance matrices in the presence of pairwise and spatial covariates," w Martin Metodiev, Marie Perrot-Dockès, Sarah Ouadah, Bailey Fosdick, Stéphane Robin & Pierre Latouche just published in Ann Appl Statist: projecteuclid.org/journals/ann...
projecteuclid.org
In “Bayesian Projection of Extant Refugee & Asylum Seeker Populations,” @herbps10.bsky.social & @adrianraftery.bsky.social propose a time-series model for projecting refugee & asylum seeker population statistics by country of origin. @nyumedpostdocs.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
New joint work published with @adrianraftery.bsky.social on methods for Bayesian probabilistic projections of migration
In “Bayesian Projection of Extant Refugee & Asylum Seeker Populations,” @herbps10.bsky.social & @adrianraftery.bsky.social propose a time-series model for projecting refugee & asylum seeker population statistics by country of origin. @nyumedpostdocs.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
rss.org.uk/news-publica... Our latest explainer from the @royalstatsoc.bsky.social climate change task force. A couple more coming out over the next few weeks. @dariodomi.bsky.social @adrianraftery.bsky.social
Climate explainer: when and how should climate data be adjusted over time
rss.org.uk
Our article, "Comparing Variable Selection and Model Averaging Methods for Logistic Regression," w Nikola Sekulovski, Maarten Marsman et al., was just published in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2534552123
Comparing variable selection and model averaging methods for logistic regression | PNAS
Model uncertainty is a central challenge in statistical models for binary outcomes such as logistic regression, arising when it is unclear which pr...
pnas.org
Our paper, “Accounting for Population Age Distribution in Forecasting Migration,” w Nathan Welch & Hana Ševčíková just published in Demography. Population age structure is important for migration, but current forecasts ignore it. We propose a new method for taking it into account.
In “Accounting for Population Age Distribution in Forecasting Migration,” Nathan Welch, Hana Ševčíková & @adrianraftery.bsky.social propose a new approach “that incorporates population age structure changes into net migration forecasts." @uwcsde.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
Our explainer ``Pattern scaling: How local warming is related to global warming: An explainer,’’ with @andrewgarrett.bsky.social & David Stephenson, just published in Significance: academic.oup.com/jrssig/artic...
Pattern scaling: How local warming is related to global warming: An explainer
Abstract. In the fourth of an occasional series of explainers on the statistics and data underpinning our understanding of climate change, Adrian E. Rafter
academic.oup.com
Proud of our article, “Bayesian Projection of Extant Refugee & Asylum Seeker Populations,” with Herb Susmann, just published in Demography.
In “Bayesian Projection of Extant Refugee & Asylum Seeker Populations,” @herbps10.bsky.social & @adrianraftery.bsky.social propose a time-series model for projecting refugee & asylum seeker population statistics by country of origin. @nyumedpostdocs.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
Well worth a read. Accessible writing on, and analysis of, climate change targets and carbon intensity from @adrianraftery.bsky.social - a member of our @royalstatsoc.bsky.social Climate Change Task Force.
Did the Paris Climate Agreement work? communities.springernature.com/posts/did-th...
Did the Paris Climate Agreement work? communities.springernature.com/posts/did-th...
Did the Paris Climate Agreement Work?
The Paris Climate Agreement was agreed by most of the world’s nations in 2015. It aimed to keep global average temperature increase over pre-industrial levels by 2100 to well below 2C. Using probabi...
communities.springernature.com
I was interviewed on @obp.org ’s Think Out Loud by Dave Miller about our study on climate trends since the 2015 Paris Agreement: www.opb.org/article/2025.... The study is at www.nature.com/articles/s43...
Emissions from economic growth undermine international progress on climate change, University of Washington study says
A study led by the University of Washington found that while the decade-old Paris Agreement has made some progress in fighting climate change, those gains have been outweighed by emissions associated ...
opb.org
Our article “Mitigation efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and meet the Paris Agreement have been offset by economic growth” www.nature.com/articles/s43..., w Jitong Jiang & Skylar Shi just published. See also the @uwnews.uw.edu release www.washington.edu/news/2025/10...
Mitigation efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and meet the Paris Agreement have been offset by economic growth - Communications Earth & Environment
Global carbon dioxide intensity declined from 2015 to 2024 following the Paris Agreement, but total emissions still increased due to economic growth, according to a global analysis of population, gros...
nature.com
1/ Contrary to recent claims by two political scientists, new work by @adrianraftery.bsky.social & Nick Irons estimates that COVID non-pharmacuetical interventions (NPIs) saved an estimated 860,000 lives in the US *in 2020 alone*. bmcglobalpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Optimal pandemic control strategies and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions in the United States - BMC Global and Public Health
Background Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a trade-off between the health impacts of viral spread and the social and economic costs of restric...
bmcglobalpublichealth.biomedcentral.com
I'm delighted to serve as Chair-Elect for this new section, along with Chair @adrianraftery.bsky.social, Programme chair @nialfriel.bsky.social, Treasurer @monjalexander.bsky.social, and Secretary EJ Wagenmakers. I'm looking forward to building this section and serving the community!
I'm super excited to announce that ISBA @isba-bayesian.bsky.social has voted to start a new section on Bayesian Social Sciences! It will be a great way to further collaborations with many disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities. bss-isba.github.io
Home - BSS-ISBA
bss-isba.github.io
The new Bayesian Social Sciences section of @isba-bayesian.bsky.social has just been created: bss-isba.github.io. The committee is myself as chair, @robinryder.bsky.social, chair elect from 2027, @nialfriel.bsky.social, program chair, @monjalexander.bsky.social, Treasurer, EJWagenmakers, Secretary.
Home - BSS-ISBA
bss-isba.github.io
Our paper, “Optimal pandemic control strategies …” bmcglobalpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... w @nickirons.bsky.social, just published.Takeaway: U.S. COVID-19 school closures were not cost-effective, but other measures were. medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09...
Optimal pandemic control strategies and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions in the United States - BMC Global and Public Health
Background Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a trade-off between the health impacts of viral spread and the social and economic costs of restric...
bmcglobalpublichealth.biomedcentral.com
Our article “Multiple imputation of hierarchical nonlinear time series data with an application to school enrollment data” w Daphne Liu just published in Annals of Applied Statistics: projecteuclid.org/journals/ann... (free preprint arxiv.org/abs/2401.01872)
Multiple imputation of hierarchical nonlinear time series data with an application to school enrollment data
International comparisons of hierarchical time series data sets based on survey data, such as annual country-level estimates of school enrollment rates, can suffer from large amounts of missing data due to differing coverage of surveys across countries and across times. A popular approach to handling missing data in these settings is through multiple imputation, which can be especially effective when there is an auxiliary variable that is strongly predictive of and has a smaller amount of missing data than the variable of interest. However, standard methods for multiple imputation of hierarchical time series data can perform poorly when the auxiliary variable and the variable of interest have a nonlinear relationship. Performance can also suffer if the multiple imputations are used to estimate an analysis model that makes different assumptions about the data compared to the imputation model, leading to uncongeniality between analysis and imputation models. We propose a Bayesian method for multiple imputation of hierarchical nonlinear time series data that uses a sequential decomposition of the joint distribution and incorporates smoothing splines to account for nonlinear relationships between variables. We compare the proposed method with existing multiple imputation methods through a simulation study and an application to secondary school enrollment data. We find that the proposed method can lead to substantial performance increases for estimation of parameters in uncongenial analysis models and for prediction of individual missing values.
projecteuclid.org
My website sites.stat.washington.edu/raftery/ just got its annual update, including new publications sites.stat.washington.edu/raftery/Rese...
Adrian E. Raftery
sites.stat.washington.edu
An explainer of how local warming is related to global warming, from the Royal Statistical Society Climate Change Task Force: rss.org.uk/policy-campa... . See also the detailed article at link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Explainer: How local warming is related to global warming – pattern scaling
rss.org.uk
Hot enough for you? ☀️ It’s not just summer – it’s statistics. New explainers from our Climate Change Task Force: 📍 Local warming ≠ global average 📍 How we know humans are behind the heat Read the explainers: rss.org.uk/news-publica... #ClimateChange #Heatwave #ClimateScience
This does involve using R, but I think you could get away with following the manual pretty closely, @adrianraftery.bsky.social's webpage on demographic projections is pretty thorough bayespop.csss.washington.edu
BayesPop
Probabilistic Population Projections
bayespop.csss.washington.edu
Science is under siege. Trump’s latest Executive Order that appoints politicians — not scientists — to evaluate research. Add your name to the open letter: actionnetwork.org/petitions/op...
Sign The Open Letter to Stand Up For Science Now!
Science is under siege. Trump’s latest Executive Order calls for politically appointed science commissars to evaluate research. Join us in adding your name to our open letter condemning Trump’s escala...
actionnetwork.org
Our paper, "A privacy-preserved and high-utility synthesis strategy for risk-based stratified subgroups of the Canadian scleroderma patient registry data" w Bei Jiang, Russell Steele & Naisyin Wang, just published in Ann Appl Stat: projecteuclid.org/journals/ann...
A privacy-preserved and high-utility synthesis strategy for risk-based stratified subgroups of the Canadian scleroderma patient registry data
Responsible data sharing anchors research reproducibility and promotes the integrity of scientific research. Motivated by Canadian Scleroderma Research Group (CSRG) patient registry data, we present a risk-based method to produce privacy-preserved and high-utility synthetic datasets, which also simultaneously imputes missing data of mixed continuous and categorical types in the original dataset. This method divides all individuals into different subgroups, based on their reidentification risks, and provides tailored synthesis strategies targeted for each risk subgroup, through the associated tuning mechanisms. Under our setting, our risk-based method reduced the number of patients at risk from 198 to four, among the 691 CSRG patients who have no missing values in any of the quasi-identifying variables, while preserving all correct inferential conclusions in the target analysis. The 95% confidence intervals (CIs) have 92.6% overlap, on average, with the CIs constructed using the unperturbed imputation-completed datasets. These findings suggest that our risk-based method makes it possible to release complete synthetic datasets for research reproducibility while ensuring that the reidentification risks are acceptably low. In contrast, the existing one-size-fits-all synthesis strategies that do not take account of different risk levels can lead to unnecessary information loss and possibly incorrect scientific conclusions.
projecteuclid.org
A call for scientists to stand up for scientific freedom as well as funding: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Our short course on Subnational Probabilistic Population Projections at PAA 2025 (description attached) will now be hybrid. To ask to join remotely, email raftery@uw.edu from your professional email by April 7 with subject “Join PAA workshop”, saying why you want to.
sites.stat.washington.edu