CHDS’s Zachary Ward has been appointed Assistant Professor of Health Decision Science in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Ward’s area of research lies at the crossroads of computational science, epidemiology, and decision science. Using simulation-based techniques, he evaluates the comparative- and cost-effectiveness of strategies to address public health concerns such as obesity, cancer, and maternal health, both in the US and globally.
In the US, Ward contributes to the CHOICES Project, which explores cost-effective strategies to promote healthy weight. He is the principal developer and programmer responsible for the CHOICES microsimulation model. His work involves predicting growth patterns for children in the United States and adjusting state adult obesity prevalence to account for self-report bias.
Globally, Ward has led modelling related to maternal health, and for Lancet Oncology Commissions on childhood cancer, imaging and nuclear medicine, and global cancer workforce.
He is also recognized for his work as the author of Amua, an open-source modeling framework and probabilistic programming language.
Prior to joining Harvard, Ward worked with various community-based NGOs in Tanzania, Malawi, and Rwanda, creating health information systems and management tools. He holds an MPH from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique and a PhD in health policy from Harvard University.
Learn more: Read more about Zachary Ward
Learn more: Read the publication, Simulation-Based Estimates and Projections of Global, Regional and Country-level Maternal Mortality by Cause, 1990–2050
Learn more: Read the publication, A Simulation-Based Comparative Effectiveness Analysis of Policies to Improve Global Maternal Health Outcomes
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