Quan (Kyle) Zhang
Economist · Data Scientist
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Economics · UHERO · Quantitative Health Sciences, John A. Burns School of Medicine
quanz@hawaii.edu · Google Scholar · ORCID · GitHub · LinkedIn · ResearchGate · SSRN
I am an applied economist and data scientist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, trained in economics (Quantitative Economics & Econometrics) and in biostatistics and quantitative health sciences at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. My research centers on aging and health, especially frailty: how to measure decline with frailty indices and other health measures, and how gradual decline differs from acute health shocks. I use causal inference, applied econometrics, biostatistics, and machine learning on large aging panels and health surveys (HRS, ELSA, SHARE, CHARLS, NHANES), working mainly in R, with SQL, Stata, and Python.
I am a Senior Collaborator and peer reviewer for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, where I have reviewed ten GBD 2023 estimation manuscripts and am a co-author, under group authorship, of six papers now under review at Lancet-family journals. At UHERO, I support community health and program-evaluation projects in Hawaiʻi, including data collection and descriptive analysis for the NIH- and state-funded Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (MauiWES).
Methods & Tools
Machine learning & data science — gradient boosting (XGBoost), random forests, LASSO/elastic net, causal forests & heterogeneous treatment effects, double/debiased ML (DML), survival models, multiple imputation (MICE), etc.
Causal inference & econometrics — difference-in-differences (DiD, incl. staggered adoption), instrumental variables (IV/2SLS), event-study & panel methods, regression discontinuity (RDD), synthetic control, etc.
Biostatistics & bioinformatics — survival analysis (Cox PH, Kaplan–Meier, AFT), mixed-effects & longitudinal models, biomarker and genotype–phenotype analysis, frailty-index construction, IRT/CFA psychometrics, cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA/DCEA), meta-analysis, etc.
Programming & software — R, Python, SQL, Stata; Git, Bash, LaTeX; high-performance computing (HPC); reproducible data pipelines over CHARLS, HRS, SHARE, NHANES, IPUMS, GBD, etc.
Research Interests
- Applied economics of aging and health, centered on frailty indices
- Gradual frailty in later life versus acute health shocks
- Causal inference, applied econometrics, and biostatistics for panel and survey data
- Measuring health and longevity: biomarkers, dementia case definitions, survival expectations
- Global burden of disease, health policy, and health equity
- Quantitative health sciences and clinical research methodology: cost-effectiveness and value-of-information analysis, psychometrics, survival analysis, cancer-registry cohorts
- Disaster recovery and community resilience
Education
- PhD in Economics (Quantitative Economics & Econometrics), University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, expected December 2027
- MS in Quantitative Health and Clinical Research, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, December 2026
- MA in Economics (en route to PhD), University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, May 2026
Awards & Honors
- AWARD Network Summer Training Institute, University of California, San Francisco — a highly competitive national selection (22 participants; NIA/NIH-funded), 2026
- Research Stipend, Department of Economics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2026 — Global Burden of Disease, Health Inequalities, and Disaster Resilience
- Burnham Campbell Fellowship Award, Department of Economics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2025 and 2026
- Hung Family Fellowship, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2024–25 and 2025–26
- Achievement Award, Department of Economics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2023
Professional Affiliations
- American Economic Association (AEA)
- American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon)
- International Health Economics Association (iHEA)
- Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER)
- Gerontological Society of America (GSA)
- Hawaii Pacific Gerontological Society (HPGS)
- Hawaii Economic Association (HEA)
- Pi Gamma Mu (International Honor Society in the Social Sciences)
Selected Publications
Zhang, Q., & Fu, Y. (2026). Ensuring trustworthy AI assisted guideline development for clinical practice. npj Digital Medicine, 9(1), 661. DOI Scholar
Zhang, Q. (2026). Do Negative Social Ties Accelerate Aging in Adults, or Does Aging Erode Social Ties? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 123(20), e2608036123. DOI Scholar