resources for simulation modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis

Last updated: February 3, 2025

These are some good resources for standard inputs to (US-based) simulation modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Demographics

• United States Census Bureau - Age and Sex Tables
• CDC WONDER Single-Race Population Estimates

Mortality

• Human Life-Table Database: Collated life tables for 142 regions over many years with stratification by age, sex, race, etc.
• CDC WONDER Underlying Cause of Death: Mortality rates stratified by cause of death, year, region, age, sex, race, etc.

Population health

• National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): A national survey on general health and nutrition, with data collected from interviews, health exams, and laboratory tests conducted on ~5,000 adults and children each year.
• National Health Interview Survey (NHIS): A national survey on a broad range of health-related topics, with data collected through confidential face-to-face interviews of ~27,000 adults each year. Specifically the 2015 Data Release which included a cancer-focused questionnaire.
• Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS): A national survey on health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services, with data collected through telephone interviews of >400,000 adults each year.

Healthcare costs

• MDSave: Cost of medical procedures by ZIP code.

Temporal cost conversion

• Consumer Price Index (CPI): The CPI ratio between a previous year and the current year can be used to convert historical prices to current day prices.

Age-related quality-of-life weights

• Hanmer J et al. Report of nationally representative values for the noninstitutionalized US adult population for 7 health-related quality-of-life scores. Med Decis Making 2006;26(4):391-400. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X06290497

Cancer

• CDC WONDER Cancer Statistics: Incidence and mortality rates stratified by cancer site, year, region, age, sex, race, etc.
• Cancer Statistics: Incidence and mortality rates, survival, prevalence, screening adherence, risk factors.

Continous-time agent-based modeling using ConcurrentSim (formerly SimJulia)

• SimJulia Documentation: Webpage format.
• SimJulia Documentation: PDF format.
• ConcurrentSim Documentation: Webpage format; newer but less comprehensive than the SimJulia documentation.
• ConcurrentSim.jl: GitHub respository.
• Julia for healthcare modelling and data science: Extremely helpful example code for hospital bed and emergency department simulation.