Population Data and Modeling Core

PROJECT SUMMARY - POPULATION DATA & MODELING CORE (PDMC) The overall aim of our National Center of Excellence is to develop and disseminate health economics research on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and health-related behaviors that informs SUD treatment and HCV and HIV care for people who use drugs. In this renewal, we will emphasize financial sustainability, advanced methods, and knowledge translation, as well as development of the next generation of rigorous researchers in our field. For 10 years, the Population Data & Modeling Core (PDMC) has assisted investigators at institutions around the US in using large databases and simulation models to investigate the economic impacts of policies, clinical guidance, and novel interventions that address SUD and its infectious disease (including HCV and HIV) consequences. Our work has informed CDC, USPSTF, and SAMHSA guidelines. In this renewal, the PDMC will continue as this national resource while enhancing the Core’s impact using novel data sources and simulation modeling approaches to address Center Aim 2. The PDMC will support innovative research that uses large databases and simulation models to examine how population-level variables impact health economic outcomes across populations. The PDMC Specific Aims are the following: 1) to promote economic research that uses population-level data to investigate interactions between population-level variables and health economic outcomes for SUD, HCV, and HIV; and 2) to advance and apply simulation modeling methods in evaluating economic and population-level outcomes of SUD and HCV/HIV interventions for people who use drugs. Through the CHERISH Consultation Service, and in collaboration with the Pilot Grant, Training & Mentoring Core, the PDMC will provide guidance and training for investigators in using population data in economic analyses of SUD and HCV/HIV care for people who use drugs, with an emphasis on research that incorporates population-level variables, and in simulation modeling of the overdose crisis and SUD-HCV-HIV syndemic with new expertise in distributional cost-effectiveness analyses. The Core will also engage in innovative advanced research methods using population data and simulation modeling. We will engage experts to identify population-level variables that likely influence SUD and related infectious disease outcomes, and characterize the impact of including or excluding them from economic analyses. We will also conduct research to characterize the performance of various indices of impact on sub-populations as outcomes of SUD economic simulation modeling studies.