Methods: Models and Tools

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. 

These two papers describe the construction and empiric calibration of a cervical cancer microsimulation model at two time points, first leveraging primary data from a large epidemiological study (Kim et al.), and second leveraging data on type-specific HPV persistence and clearance from the control arm of vaccine trials (Campos et al.).

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.