Scan brief descriptions of methodological work conducted by our center community and our decision science colleagues.

Costs of Excess Weight in US
Zach Ward speaking at meeting

How much does excess weight cost in the US? Using a new method to estimate medical expenditures by continuous body mass index (BMI), this analysis finds that adult obesity was between $1,800 and $3,000 per year, accounting for over $170 billion of medical spending per year. 

Health Differences in CEA
Ankur Pandya speaking, looking to one side, during meeting.

The study proposed a new method to account for unknown equity weight values in distributional cost-effectiveness analysis using threshold inequality aversion parameters with the aim of making distributional cost-effectiveness analysis more accessible and encouraging attention to equity in economic evaluations.

Wastewater COVID-19 Surveillance
Nicolas Menzies Smiling Off-Camera Sitting in Meeting

Wastewater levels of SARS-CoV-2 were monitored to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Using data from 2020-2023, this article used a Bayesian model to quantify the relationship between wastewater data and traditional case-based surveillance data.

Amua Logo

Featured Resource: Open Source Modeling Platform

Amua, the Swahili word meaning “decide”, is an open-source, freely-available software platform for users to build decision models. The software was designed by CHDS’ Zachary Ward to be transparent, flexible, and accessible.