Economic Simulation Platform

A microsimulation, policy evaluation tool to estimate health and economic burden reductions. By leveraging causally estimated parameters, this tool can be used to analyse how policy making and/or personal investment into a healthy lifestyle will influence the relevant health trajectories and the associated economic burden.

This platform will focus on assessing and projecting the economic burden related to non-communicable diseases, associated with different kinds of external exposures (environmental, social and behavioural), using a dynamic microsimulation model.

The model will consist of:

• A cohort model that predicts the health outcomes of present and future cohorts based on historical trends and the correlation between multiple outcomes;
• A transition module that computes predicted probabilities of entering and exiting different binary (e.g., disease, status, death) and ordered outcomes (e.g., Activities of Daily Living), and predicted values of continuous outcomes (e.g., expenditure, BMI);
• A policy outcomes module, translating individual-level outcomes into policy-relevant aggregates such as averages of expenditure, disease prevalence, life expectancy, disease and disability free life expectancy and BMI, by sex, age groups and year.

The validated dynamic microsimulation model will then be used to evaluate ‘what if’ scenarios, building on the causal relationships identified and subsequently feeding into the Policy Options.

Timescale for completion: Winter 2024