Tobacco Intervention Modelling
This project builds upon the considerable body of tobacco research and simulation modelling of Blakely, Wilson, Lopez and colleagues, to estimate the impact of separate and joint tobacco-related policies.
Project Details
Tobacco still causes large health loss in Australia and countries in the Oceania and Asia region. We are also in a time of disruptive technology and innovation, such as e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco as cessation aids or substitutes for tobacco. A key consideration in policy making is the magnitude of impact of any intervention on smoking prevalence and health gains – including for combinations or packages of interventions.
Simulation modelling can assist here, projecting beyond the existing evidence from time limited randomized trials and comparing: traditional (e.g. mass media) and novel endgame scenarios not yet implemented such as drastically reducing the nicotine or additives in tobacco and packages of intervention.
This project will build on the considerable body of tobacco research and simulation modelling of Blakely, Wilson, Lopez and colleagues, utilizing the VIVARIUM simulation framework to estimate the impact of separate and joint policies in Australasia, Asia and the Pacific.
The project is ideally suited for postgraduate students looking to evaluate the effect of multiple tobacco interventions in one country, or for comparing one intervention (eg, tobacco tax) across multiple countries.
Key publications underpinning this project include:
- comparing multiple endgame strategies in NZ
- the impact of liberalizing access to e-cigarettes (and see infographic)
- simulating tobacco taxes and a smokefree generation in the Solomon Islands as proof of principle that GBD data can be used to population intervention models.
Researchers
- Prof Tony Blakely, Research Professor, Epidemiology
- Dr Nic Geard, Computer Science
- Dr Rob Moss, Computer Science
- Dr Natalie Carvalho, Health Economics
- Dr Ankur Singh, Epidemiology
- Prof Alan Lopez, Professor, Epidemiology
- Dr Driss Ait Ouakrim, Epidemiology
Collaborators
- Prof Nick Wilson, Epidemiology
- Prof Abie Flaxman, Health Metrics Sciences, Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington
- James Collins, Software Engineer
- Dr Anja Mizdrak, Public health intervention simulation modelling