Resources Repository
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EditorialPublication 2020Waiting for Certainty on COVID-19 Antibody Tests — At What Cost?
This perspective anticipates the availability of serologic antibody testing and considers its potential usefulness in mitigation …
This perspective anticipates the availability of serologic antibody testing and considers its potential usefulness in mitigation policy to reduce COVID-19 transmission. For example: Could we screen for serologic antibodies as a proxy for possible immunity and identify people who could return to the workplace with less severe mitigation measures? The authors acknowledge the uncertainties raised by many policy actors, including the WHO, such as, "Do antibodies confer immunity and, if so, for how long? How accurate is…
Probability/Bayes | North America | Global | Health Systems | Infectious Diseases | Test Performance | Technology Assessment | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
BookPublication 2014Decision Making in Health and Medicine: Integrating Evidence and Values
Decision making in health care involves consideration of a complex set of diagnostic, therapeutic and …
Decision making in health care involves consideration of a complex set of diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic uncertainties. Medical therapies have side effects, surgical interventions may lead to complications, and diagnostic tests can produce misleading results. Furthermore, patient values and service costs must be considered. Decisions in clinical and health policy require careful weighing of risks and benefits and are commonly a trade-off of competing objectives: maximizing quality of life vs maximizing life expectancy vs minimizing…
Probability/Bayes | Decision Analysis | North America | Global | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Value of Information | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Europe | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
BookPublication 1980Clinical Decision Analysis
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health …
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at the Center for the Analysis of Health Practices. The book had its origins in a set of classroom materials developed during the academic year 1974-75 for an elective course in medical decision making at the Harvard Medical School. In this book students are shown how to structure clinical decision problems, how to systematically formulate the intertwining roles of diagnosis and treatment, how to…
Probability/Bayes | Decision Analysis | North America | Global | Infectious Diseases | Preferences/Values | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Value of Information | State-Transition | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Child/Nutrition | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Europe | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
ArticlePublication 2017Estimating the Fitness Cost and Benefit of Cefixime Resistance in Neisseria Gonorrhoeae
Gonorrhoea is one of the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infections in England, and more …
Gonorrhoea is one of the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infections in England, and more than half of annual infections occur in men who have sex with men (MSM). As the bacterium has developed resistance to each first-line antibiotic in turn, an improved understanding is needed of fitness benefits and costs of antibiotic resistance to inform control policy and planning. The authors developed a stochastic compartmental model representing the natural history and transmission of cefixime-sensitive…
Decision Analysis | Global | Health Systems | Infectious Diseases | Dynamic Transmission | Risk Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
Lesson/ModuleWeb Portal, Teaching Resource 2017Translating Science Into Policy: The Role of Decision Science
This module introduces the basic techniques of “decision science” that are used in policy making. …
This module introduces the basic techniques of “decision science” that are used in policy making. The materials are mainly prescriptive, focusing on how to make good decisions, but also include examples of the systematic ways that people make poor decisions. The module: (1) surveys the meanings of utility; (2) examines decision making in conditions where risk is not an issue; (3) examines decision making in conditions where risk is an issue because the likelihood of…
Decision Analysis | North America | Global | Infectious Diseases | Decision Psychology | Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Policy Translation -
OrganizationWeb Portal 2024Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the nation's lead federal agency for …
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the nation's lead federal agency for research on health care quality, costs, outcomes and patient safety. AHRQ is the health services research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), complementing the biomedical research mission of its sister agency, the National Institutes of Health. The agency is home to research centers that specialize in major areas of health care research, including: clinical practice…
Decision Analysis | North America | Health Systems | Infectious Diseases | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Technology Assessment | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Child/Nutrition | Chronic Disease/Risk | Mental Health | Injuries/Accidents | Social Determinants | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
BookPublication 1978Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease
This report from the Institute of Medicine, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery …
This report from the Institute of Medicine, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease, was written to review and critique the decisions made around the 1976 swine flu threat. In 1976, a small group of soldiers at Fort Dix were infected with a swine flu virus that was deemed similar to the virus responsible for the great 1918-19 world-wide flu pandemic. The U.S. government initiated an unprecedented effort to immunize every American against…
Decision Analysis | North America | Health Systems | Infectious Diseases | Risk Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2021New Microsimulation Models to Inform Cervical Cancer Control
Health decision models consider the lifetime natural history of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and pathogenesis …
Health decision models consider the lifetime natural history of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and pathogenesis of cervical cancer, and estimate the long-term impact of preventive interventions. We propose a new health decision modeling framework that de-emphasizes previously used cytologic-colposcopic-histologic diagnoses, which are subjective and lack reproducibility, relying instead on HPV type and duration of infection as the major determinants of model transition probabilities. We posit that new model health states and corollary transitions are universal,…
Decision Analysis | Global | Infectious Diseases | Mathematical Models | Microsimulation | Calibration/Validation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis -
ArticlePublication 2020Infectious Disease Pandemic Planning and Response: Incorporating Decision Analysis
During a pandemic, decisions must be made under rapidly changing, uncertain conditions. Despite advances in …
During a pandemic, decisions must be made under rapidly changing, uncertain conditions. Despite advances in analytical methods for gaining early situational awareness (i.e., of a disease’s transmissibility and severity) and for predicting the likely effectiveness of interventions, a major gap exists globally in terms of integrating this information in policy documents. The authors argue that mathematical and statistical models are important tools for pandemic planning and response. Once an outbreak of pandemic potential has been…
Decision Analysis | Global | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Government/Law | Health/Medicine