Jamie Cohen Successfully Defends Dissertation – Center for Health Decision Science

Jamie Cohen, 5^th year doctoral student in Decision Sciences/Health Policy, successfully defended her dissertation, Applications of Mathematical Modeling to Evaluate Cervical Cancer Prevention in an HIV-Endemic Setting. Her dissertation committee was chaired by Jane Kim and included Nicolas Menzies, Rochelle Walensky, and David Cutler.

In her dissertation, Cohen developed a novel model of HIV, HPV and cervical cancer natural history and patterns of care and treatment, calibrated to South African epidemiologic data. She used the model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of cervical cancer screening policy in HPV-vaccinated and-unvaccinated women, based on HIV status and history of HIV testing. Her results suggest that current South African guidelines for unvaccinated women are dominated by alternative strategies that increase the frequency of screening and lower the age to start screening.

Cohen’s defense was presented via Zoom, and was attended by over 75 people from all over the world, including longstanding friends and mentors in South Africa. Cohen will be a Research Scientist at the Institute for Disease Modeling in Bellevue, WA, beginning in June, where she will be working on SARS-CoV-2 modeling and policy analysis.