Quan (Kyle) Zhang
Health Economist · Data Scientist
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Economics · UHERO · John A. Burns School of Medicine
quanz@hawaii.edu · Google Scholar · ORCID · GitHub · LinkedIn · ResearchGate
I am a health economist and data scientist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, trained in both economics (Quantitative Economics & Econometrics) and quantitative health sciences at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. I combine causal inference and applied econometrics with machine learning, SQL, and large-scale data engineering to study population aging, frailty dynamics, health shocks and labor supply, disaster health economics, and health equity — working with longitudinal microdata such as CHARLS, HRS, and SHARE in R, Python, SQL, and Stata.
As a researcher at UHERO, I contribute to the NIH- and state-funded Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (MauiWES). I am also an invited collaborator and peer reviewer for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington.
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
- Health economics and policy
- Causal inference and applied econometrics for health and social outcomes
- Population aging, frailty dynamics, and health and labor supply over the life course
- Disaster health economics and community resilience
- Health equity and quantitative health sciences
Education
- PhD in Economics (Quantitative Economics & Econometrics), University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2023–present
- Quantitative Health Sciences, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2024–2026
News
2026 New paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): “Do Negative Social Ties Accelerate Aging in Adults, or Does Aging Erode Social Ties?”
2026 Selected for the AWARD Network Summer Institute (UCSF; NIA/NIH-funded national cohort).
2026 Awarded the Bernie Campbell Fellowship Fund Award, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Nov 2026 Paper accepted at the Southern Economic Association (SEA) 96th Annual Meeting, Houston, TX.
Selected Publications
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.
Zhang, Q. (2025). Overcoming bias in a fall prevention program in resource-limited areas. JAMA.