Talk:Christopher J. L. Murray

Requesting COI editing help
Hi, I'm a paid editor trying to update the pages related to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, including the Christopher J. L. Murray page here. I intend to follow the COI editing guidelines. I'm also very new to this and a bit overwhelmed. Murray's page is outdated, and also a stub. I have written some proposed content updating the page, adding more information, and more citations. I have placed it here on my user page. I'm requesting the community's help in getting the page updated, hopefully with the text I've proposed. I hope this is the right protocol; if not, please advise. Thanks in advance for any help. Savannah38 (talk) 01:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Request edit
Hi again, I'm a paid editor trying to update this bio, which is outdated and marked as a stub. I am following COI guidelines. I have written a draft and am seeking review in the hopes that another editor can bring Murray's page up to date. I am new to this, but doing my best to follow the process and improve the page while maintaining a neutral point of view. Here is my proposed draft. Please let me know how to proceed. Thanks!

Christopher J.L. Murray
Christopher Murray is a scholar in global health and public health at the University of Washington in Seattle and is the institute director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He is the author or editor of 14 books and more than 235 journal articles.

He previously served as Director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and as Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster at the World Health Organization. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984 and was a Rhodes Scholar, attending Oxford University, where he earned a DPhil in International Health Economics. In 1988, he returned to Harvard, where he specialized in internal medicine and earned a Medical Doctorate. Since, he has worked on measurement of health and health outcomes at various levels, including national, regional, and international.

In 2007, he moved from Harvard to the University of Washington to head the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation with the help of former Mexican Secretary of Health, Julio Frenk, who serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. At the institute, Murray's work has included studying adult and child mortality, costs of various health interventions, and continuing work with colleagues at Harvard, the WHO and elsewhere on projects that conduct research and mine data to improve public health.

While at Harvard, Murray, along with medical demographer Alan Lopez, developed the disability adjusted life years (DALY) approach to measuring the global burden of disease. Using this approach, it is possible to calculate standardized estimates for the years of life lost due to disease, injury and risk factors over time. It is also possible to compare the effects of different diseases on a population. The research is intended to be used by policy makers to weigh healthcare decisions and allocate resources.

The idea behind the work was to remove politics and other pressures from the research questions. This led to some tension when the team moved to the World Health Organization. When countries and organizations were found to have poorer-than-expected health outcomes, they complained to the W.H.O. At one point, an independent committee was formed to review some of the results.

The DALY concept has since grown into much more common use, especially in the field of public health and health impact assessment.

His work attracted the attention of Bill Gates, who decided to use the concept of DALYs to help determine priorities and evaluate potential projects in global health.

In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the state of Washington, established IHME and selected Murray as its leader. As head of IHME, Murray greatly expanded on his earlier research, leading an effort by hundreds of researchers worldwide to produce large-scale Global Burden of Disease reports in 2010 and 2013. The projects, which involved creating and then analyzing a database of over 800 million deaths, produced estimates for death and disability from 290 health conditions.

The work has been widely disseminated, and he is a named author on 35 articles associated with GBD.

In July 2014, he presented some of the GBD 2013 findings in Melbourne, Australia, at AIDS 2014, the largest conference of international HIV researchers, policymakers and people living with the disease.

He also spoke at TEDMED 2013, an international gathering of innovators in the field of medicine, including doctors, educators, nonprofits and government agencies. The topic of his talk was "What does a $100 million public health data revolution look like?"

Also in 2013, he and other IHME faculty and staff members were invited to the White House for an event associated with the Let's Move! campaign, which emphasizes healthy diets and physical activity to address the obesity problem. At the event, First Lady Michelle Obama cited IHME research in her talk, and Murray spoke about health trends and life expectancy projections gleaned from GBD 2010.

Some of the findings from his studies have been controversial. In 2010, the Lancet published one such study on global maternal death rates, showing, to the surprise of some in the field, that maternal mortality had dropped significantly over the prior three decades. Fearing the results might undermine their ongoing efforts, some advocacy groups tried to delay publication of the material, the Lancet editor said at the time.

In 2008, the Lancet published findings from Murray and IHME's work evaluating the work of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, (Gavi) which showed many countries had been exaggerating the number of children being immunized for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The study found that progress in childhood immunizations is far lower than prior official reports. The countries were receiving funding for the vaccinations, raising the concern that Gavi may have paid out much more than it should have based on the number of children immunized. After the report was published Gavi suspended payments and commenced a review.

External links IHME biography

Savannah38 (talk) 00:58, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Request edit
Hi, I posted a draft of proposed changes to the Christopher J. L. Murray article a few weeks ago. Since then, I've gotten guidance from editors via Wikipedia Help Chat. They suggested some changes, which I've incorporated below. I have a COI so I am asking fellow editors to take a look at the draft, offer suggestions, and, hopefully, post to the live page. Thanks in advance!

Here's the revised draft:

Christopher J.L. Murray Christopher Murray is a researcher in global health and public health at the University of Washington in Seattle and is the institute director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He is the author or editor of 14 books and more than 235 journal articles.

He previously served as Director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and as Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster at the World Health Organization. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984 and was a Rhodes Scholar, attending Oxford University, where he earned a DPhil in International Health Economics. In 1988, he returned to Harvard, where he specialized in internal medicine and earned a Medical Doctorate. Since, he has worked on measurement of health and health outcomes.

In 2007, he moved from Harvard to the University of Washington to head the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation with the help of former Mexican Secretary of Health, Julio Frenk, who serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. At the institute, Murray's work has included studying adult and child mortality, costs of various health interventions, and continuing work with colleagues at Harvard, the WHO and elsewhere on projects that conduct research and mine data to improve public health.

While at Harvard, Murray, along with medical demographer Alan Lopez, developed the disability adjusted life years (DALY) approach to measuring the global burden of disease. Using this approach, it is possible to calculate standardized estimates for the years of life lost due to disease, injury and risk factors over time. It is also possible to compare the effects of different diseases on a population. The research is intended to be used by policy makers to weigh healthcare decisions and allocate resources.

The idea behind the work was to remove politics and other pressures from the research questions. This led to some tension when the team moved to the World Health Organization. When countries and organizations were found to have poorer-than-expected health outcomes, they complained to the W.H.O. At one point, an independent committee was formed to review some of the results.

His work attracted the attention of Bill Gates, who decided to use the concept of DALYs to help determine priorities and evaluate potential projects in global health. In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the state of Washington, established IHME and selected Murray as its leader. As head of IHME, Murray greatly expanded on his earlier research, leading an effort by 486 researchers from 302 institutions in 50 countries to produce Global Burden of Disease reports in 2010 and 2013. T

The later reports were significantly larger than the first. In 1990, for example, researchers catalogued 107 diseases and injuries. The 2013 report involved creating and then analyzing a database of over 800 million deaths, and produced estimates for death and disability from 240 health conditions.

Some of the findings from his studies have been controversial. In 2010, the Lancet published one such study on global maternal death rates, showing, to the surprise of some in the field, that maternal mortality had dropped significantly over the prior three decades. Fearing the results might undermine their ongoing efforts, some advocacy groups tried to delay publication of the material, the Lancet editor said at the time.

In 2008, the Lancet published findings from Murray and IHME's work evaluating the work of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, (Gavi) which showed many countries had been inflating the number of children being immunized for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The study found that progress in childhood immunizations is far lower than prior official reports. The countries were receiving funding for the vaccinations, raising the concern that Gavi may have paid out much more than it should have based on the number of children immunized. After the report was published Gavi suspended payments and commenced a review.

External links IHME biography

Savannah38 (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

A few notes:


 * We don't typically include individual events a BLP has spoken or been at
 * All the references have an error with the "date" parameter. You should feel free to fix this directly in article-space as a non-controversial edit allowed by WP:COI
 * Same for filling out the infobox
 * I added pretty default section titles for this kind of thing, but the section at the top that is not in a sub-section should actually be a summary of the entire article; if you'd like to write one up.

I put most of your draft in article-space. Thanks for being patient! CorporateM (Talk) 23:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Salary information?
Dr. Murray is the highest-paid public university professor in Washington State, with an annual salary of $632,442 (2014); would adding this information violate any Wikipedia guidelines on the biographies of living persons? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:603:4302:D6B3:221:5CFF:FE96:ADC7 (talk) 18:31, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you!
I'm not exactly sure what I need to do for the date and infobox problems, but I'll take a look. I'll also take a stab at a summary. Should I post that on the talk page or would that be considered a non-controversial edit that I can do myself? Thanks again! Savannah38 (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, nice to see you still around. I miss my dear Seattle and hope you are enjoying it. I apologize for the date problem but Wikipedia is simply under construction. The problem is the period in the dates. If you wanted to remove the red errors, the easiest thing to do is format dates in the way they are formatted in your signature which is (day) (month spelled out) (year). The robots are having trouble reading them.
 * Probably it is best to post the summary here first; if no one comments then feel free to migrate it to the article yourself. I would comment if you pinged me by saying " anywhere on this page. Thanks for supporting IHME.   Blue Rasberry   (talk)  22:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks I went in and fixed the dates. I looked at fixing the citations for missing titles but I couldn't figure out exactly where/how to insert that stuff.
 * As for introductory text, here is a quick intro that I hope fits the bill:


 * Christopher Murray is a researcher in global health and public health at the University of Washington in Seattle and is the institute director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Beginning in 1990, he has worked on ways to measure the burden of disease and disability around the globe. He has led several projects to gather that data, disease-by-disease, country by country. The aim of these efforts, which involve the work of hundreds of researchers, is to provide data for policy makers around the world to allocate healthcare resources.


 * If there are no objections, I'll go ahead and post. Thanks for the help, Wikipedians. I've learned a bunch.

Savannah38 (talk) 23:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that seems like a reasonable revision. Please add it. Thanks for seeking review.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  14:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks again,  I added the summary. Next on my list is the IHME page itself. Hope to get that one edited in the next few weeks. Savannah38 (talk) 15:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Another editor with a COI
Hi, I am also an editor with a COI and I've been asked to propose some updates to this page. I'm pasting a revised version of the article below along with citations, which I've noted with letters since I can't put them directly into the program. This is the first time I've tried to contribute to Wikipedia, so please tell me if I need to do something differently. Thanks

Occupation	Institute director of the IHME

Known for	public health

Relatives	Megan B. Murray (sister)

Awards	John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award (2018)

Christopher Murray is an American researcher in global health and public health at the University of Washington in Seattle and is the institute director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Beginning in 1990, he has worked on ways to measure the burden of disease and disability around the globe. He has led several projects to gather that data, disease-by-disease, country by country. The aim of these efforts, which involve the work of hundreds of researchers, is to provide data for policy makers around the world to allocate healthcare resources. Contents •	1Early life •	2Career •	3Research •	4References •	5External links Early life[edit source] Murray was born to a New Zealand-born scientist father and grew up in Minnesota with three siblings, including Megan B. Murray.[1] As his father was an internist and mother was a microbiologist, the family moved to Niger for various charitable medical missions.[2] Career[edit]

Murray previously served as Director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and as Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster at the World Health Organization. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984 and was a Rhodes Scholar, attending Oxford University, where he earned a DPhil in International Health Economics.[3] In 1988, he returned to Harvard, where he specialized in internal medicine and earned a Medical Doctorate. Since, he has worked on measurement of health and health outcomes. He was a part of the Disease Control Priorities Project. From 2005-2007, Murray was director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.[A] In 2007, Murray moved from Harvard to the University of Washington to head the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation with the help of former Mexican Secretary of Health, Julio Frenk, who serves as Chair of the Board of Directors.[4] At the institute, Murray's work has included studying adult and child mortality,[B][C] costs of various health interventions, and continuing work with colleagues at Harvard, WHO and elsewhere on projects that conduct research and mine data to improve public health.[D] The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation COVID model was called the Chris Murray model in White House press briefings.[5] In 2020, Murray was appointed by the Council on Foreign Relations to serve on its Independent Task Force on Improving Pandemic Preparedness, co-chaired by Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Frances Fragos Townsend.[6]

Research[edit] While at Harvard, Murray, along with medical demographer Alan Lopez, developed the disability adjusted life years (DALY) approach to measuring the global burden of disease. Using this approach, it is possible to calculate standardized estimates for the years of healthy life lost due to disease, injury and risk factors over time. It is also possible to compare the effects of different diseases on a population.[7] The research is intended to be used by policy makers to weigh healthcare decisions and allocate resources.[8] The idea behind the work was to remove politics and other pressures from the research questions. This led to some tension when the team moved to the World Health Organization. When countries and organizations were found to have poorer-than-expected health outcomes, they complained to WHO. At one point, an independent committee was formed to review some of the results.[9] His work attracted the attention of Bill Gates, who decided to use the concept of DALYs to help determine priorities and evaluate potential projects in global health.[10] In 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the state of Washington, established IHME and selected Murray as its leader. As head of IHME, Murray greatly expanded on his earlier research, leading an effort by 486 researchers from 302 institutions in 50 countries to produce Global Burden of Disease reports in 2010.[11] Updated reports were published in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019, with GBD 2019 including contributions from more than 5,000 researchers in 152 countries.[E] The later reports were significantly larger than the first. In 1990, for example, researchers catalogued 107 diseases and injuries.[12] The 2013 report involved creating and then analyzing a database of over 800 million deaths, and produced estimates for death from 240 health conditions and disability from 301 health conditions.[13][14] By 2019, the report included 286 causes of death, 369 diseases and injuries, and 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories.[F][G] Some of the findings from his studies have been controversial. In 2010, The Lancet published one such study on global maternal death rates, showing, to the surprise of some in the field, that maternal mortality had dropped significantly over the prior three decades. Fearing the results might undermine their ongoing efforts, some advocacy groups tried to delay publication of the material, The Lancet editor said at the time.[15] In 2008, The Lancet published findings from Murray and IHME's work evaluating the work of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which showed many countries had been inflating the number of children being immunized for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus.[16] The study found that progress in childhood immunizations is far lower than prior official reports. The countries were receiving funding for the vaccinations, raising the concern that Gavi may have paid out much more than it should have based on the number of children immunized. After the report was published Gavi suspended payments and commenced a review.[17]

Murray was the subject of the book Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients., by journalist Jeremy N. Smith, published in 2015.[H] In 2018, he became the Chair of the newly established Department of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington.[I] Murray received the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award in March 2018 “for ground-breaking work in conceptualizing and quantifying the Global Burden of Disease.”[J]

In 2020 and 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic, Murray was frequently a spokesperson for IHME’s COVID-19 modeling efforts. Based on IHME’s modeling, he advocated for widespread mask-wearing to bring down the number of cases and deaths.[K] In the spring of 2020, he published several opinion pieces about the likelihood that the United States may never reach herd immunity from COVID-19.[L][M] He also authored an op-ed in the New York Times stating that the US government was withholding data on COVID-19 cases from researchers.[N] Following this, NPR obtained and published a government report showing the data collected on a daily basis at the city, county, and hospital levels.[O]

[A] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population-development/about-us/history/. History @50 Years: The Harvard Center for Population and Development. author= Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Accessed April 2, 2021.

[B] GBD 2013 Mortality and Causes of Death Collaborators. Global, regional, and national age-sex specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61682-2/fulltext. December 17, 2014.

[C] Global, regional, and national levels of neonatal, infant, and under-5 mortality during 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60497-9/fulltext. May 2, 2014.

[D] Smith, Jeremy. 2015. Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/epic-measures-jeremy-n-smith. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780062237507.

[E] http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-latest-global-disease-estimates-reveal-perfect-storm-rising-chronic-diseases-and. The Lancet: Latest global disease estimates reveal perfect storm of rising chronic diseases and public health failures fuelling COVID-19 pandemic. October 15, 2020. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[F] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30925-9/fulltext Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. GBD 2019 Diseases and Injuries Collaborators. October 17, 2020. The Lancet. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[G] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30752-2/fulltext Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. GBD 2019 Risk Factors Collaborators. October 17, 2020. The Lancet. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[H] Smith, Jeremy. 2015. Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/epic-measures-jeremy-n-smith. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780062237507.

[I] https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/christopher-murray-chairs-new-health-metrics-sciences-department Christopher Murray chairs new health metrics sciences department. author= June 29, 2018. Newsroom.uw.edu (Washington.edu). University of Washington. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[J] https://gairdner.org/winners/index-of-winners/#Christopher_J._L._Murray Christopher J. L. Murray MD, DPhil, John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award 2018. author= 2018. Gairdner.org. Gairdner Les Prix Canada Gairdner Awards. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[K] Yan, Holly. July 19, 2020. Top health officials have changed their minds about face mask guidance -- but for good reason. https://us.cnn.com/2020/07/19/health/face-masks-us-guidance/index.html. Accessed April 2, 2021.

[L] https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/we-may-never-get-herd-immunity We May Never Get to Herd Immunity. Murray, Christopher. January 28, 2021. www.thinkglobalhealth.org. Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[M] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777343 The Potential Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Murray, Christopher and Piot, Peter. March 3, 2021. Jamanetwork.com. JAMA. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[N] Murray, Christopher. October 23, 2020. Why Can’t We See All of the Government’s Virus Data? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/opinion/coronavirus-data-secrecy.html The New York Times. Accessed March 12, 2021.

[O] Huang, Pien and Simmons-Duffin, Selena. October 30, 2020. Internal Documents Reveal COVID-19 Hospitalization Data The Government Keeps Hidden. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/30/929239481/internal-documents-reveal-covid-19-hospitalization-data-the-government-keeps-hid NPR. Accessed March 12, 2021.

Ch3124 (talk) 22:22, 2 April 2021 (UTC)