Resources Repository
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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 | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Global -
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 | Health Systems | Dynamic Transmission | Risk Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global -
ReviewPublication 2017Patients' Preferences in Cancer Treatment: Review of Discrete Choice Experiments
This study aimed to systematically review discrete choice experiments (DCEs) about patients’ preferences for cancer …
This study aimed to systematically review discrete choice experiments (DCEs) about patients’ preferences for cancer treatment and assessed the relative importance of outcome, process and cost attributes. A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and EMBASE to identify all DCEs investigating patients’ preferences for cancer treatment between January 2010 and April 2016. Attributes were classified into outcome, process and cost attributes, and their relative importance was assessed. A total of 28 DCEs were identified.…
Decision Analysis | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | Health Outcomes | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | North America | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2017Likelihood Approach for Calibration of Stochastic Epidemic Models
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens …
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens given the importance of chance events when the number of infectious individuals is small. However, methods for parameter estimation and prediction for these types of stochastic models remain limited. This paper describes a calibration and prediction framework for stochastic compartmental transmission models of epidemics. The proposed method applies a linear noise approximation to describe the size of the fluctuations, and…
Dynamic Simulation | Health Systems | Dynamic Transmission | Calibration/Validation | Infectious Diseases | Health/Medicine | Global -
ReviewPublication 2016Choosing an Epidemiological Model Structure for Economic Evaluation
This review presents a taxonomy of epidemiological model structures and applies it to the economic …
This review presents a taxonomy of epidemiological model structures and applies it to the economic evaluation of public health interventions for non-communicable diseases. Growing pressures on health services and on social care have led to a greater need for prevention of chronic diseases. In order for decision makers to make informed judgements about how to best spend finite public health resources, they must be able to quantify the anticipated costs, benefits, and opportunity costs of…
Dynamic Simulation | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | State-Transition | Dynamic Transmission | Microsimulation | Chronic Disease/Risk | Social Determinants | Environmental Health | Climate/Environment | Culture/Society | Health/Medicine -
ReviewPublication 2013Valuing the Economic Benefits of Complex Interventions
This is a review of economic evaluations of complex health interventions. Complex interventions, involving interlinked …
This is a review of economic evaluations of complex health interventions. Complex interventions, involving interlinked packages of care, challenge the application of current methods of economic evaluation that focus on measuring only health gain. The authors find that complex interventions may be problematic on two levels. First, the complexity means the intervention may not fit into one of the current appraisal systems, and/or second, maximizing health is not the only objective. This paper discusses the…
Decision Analysis | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2011Dynamic Policies for Controlling Spread of Emerging Infections
This paper illustrates the design and implementation of a dynamic health policy for the control …
This paper illustrates the design and implementation of a dynamic health policy for the control of a novel strain of influenza, where two types of interventions are assumed to be available during the epidemic: (1) vaccines and antiviral drugs, and (2) transmission reducing measures, such as social distancing or mask use, that may be turned "on" or "off" repeatedly during the course of epidemic. A modeling approach is described for developing dynamic health policies that allow…
Dynamic Simulation | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Dynamic Transmission | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global