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. 

 

Iterative Process of Empiric Calibration
Image of Sue Goldie and Jane Kim in Meeting

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.).

Validating Cardiovascular Disease Model
Image of Ankur Pandya Speaking at Meeting.

This paper describes a cardiovascular disease model used to evaluate prevention and treatment, and a validation process in which simulated results were compared to observed all-cause and CVD-specific mortality data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey using survival curves and ROC curves. 

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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’ Zach Ward to be transparent, flexible, and accessible. Learn about Amua.