The Public Impact of Using Observational Data to Enhance Efficiency and Effectiveness: From COVID-19 Vaccines to Startups to Emergency Rooms

June 2024, Paper: "In February of 2021, a significant problem was on top of mind for many officials across the globe: are recently developed COVID-19 vaccines effective enough to end the terrible tragedy caused by the pandemic. I was thinking about the same issue during the same time. There was some evidence from randomized control trials, but the evidence was very limited. For example, the trials did not include enough people from different races, background, conditions, and ages, among others. So it was not clear whether the limited results showing that vaccines are (at least to some extent) effective can be extended to the general public."