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 builds quantitative indicators of health and aging, such as frailty indices, and aims to develop new, validated measures that other researchers can adopt and build on. To estimate causal effects as credibly as the data allow, I use quasi-experimental designs, causal machine learning, and causal mediation analysis, working mainly in R.
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
Statistical methods — generalized linear models (including logistic and penalized logistic regression), panel models with fixed effects, sampling methods for complex surveys, multiple imputation, mediation analysis, power and equivalence testing, etc.
Causal inference — staggered difference-in-differences and event studies, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, matching and inverse-probability weighting, g-computation, sensitivity analysis (E-values), etc.
Machine learning — causal forests, double/debiased machine learning, penalized regression (elastic net), cross-validation, etc.
Quantitative health sciences — frailty index construction (deficit accumulation), survival analysis (Cox models), cost-effectiveness and value-of-information analysis, psychometric scale scoring, survey questionnaire design (Qualtrics), etc.
Programming & tools — R (primary: data processing, modeling, visualization with ggplot2, reproducible workflows); working knowledge of SQL and Tableau; Git; with AI-assisted coding, quickly picks up other tools, such as Python, SAS, Stata, etc.
Data — national aging panels (HRS, ELSA, SHARE, CHARLS); NHANES, MEPS, IPUMS; SEER; hospital cancer-registry data, etc.
Research Interests
- Quantitative health indicators, such as frailty indices, that combine many survey items and biomarkers into one score
- Developing and validating new health measures as tools for future research
- Causal inference: modern difference-in-differences, event studies, and sensitivity analysis for unmeasured confounding
- Causal mediation analysis and causal machine learning: pathways and who is affected most
- Applied econometrics and biostatistics for large national panels and health surveys
- Global burden of disease, health policy, and health equity
- Quantitative health sciences and clinical research methodology
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, 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