resources for simulation modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis

Last updated: November 29, 2025

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

Demographics

[ U.S. Census Bureau ] Age and Sex Tables: Select the "All" tab to find the latest "Age and Sex Composition in the United States (YEAR)" file.
[ CDC WONDER ] Single-Race Population Estimates: Stratification by year, region, sex, race, and age.

Mortality rates

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: Stratification by cause of death, place of death, year, region, sex, race, age, and more.

Survival analysis

Population health

[ CDC ] National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): 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.
[ CDC ] National Health Interview Survey (NHIS): 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. The 2015 Data Release is the most recent iteration which includes a cancer-focused questionnaire.
[ CDC ] Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS): 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

[ CMS ] Medicare Procedure Price Lookup Tool: Medicare costs for medical procedures. Make sure to cross-reference with the most recent "(YEAR) Procedure Price Lookup Comparison File" (easiest way to find this file is by Googling the exact name).
[ CMS ] PFS Relative Value Files: Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. The physician fee for a procedure is the product of the facility/non-facility RVU and the conversion factor.
MDSave: Commercial costs for medical procedures.
[ RAND ] Hospital Price Transparency Study: Medicare-to-commercial cost conversion factors.

Temporal cost conversion

[ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ] Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Medical Care in U.S. City Average: The CPI ratio between a previous year and the current year can be used to convert historical prices to current day prices.

Age-related utilities

Fryback et al. US norms for six generic health-related quality-of-life indexes from the National Health Measurement study. Med Care 2007 Dec;45(12):1162-70.
Hanmer 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.

Age-related healthcare costs

[ CMS ] National Health Expenditure Data: Age and Sex: Personal healthcare spending by type of good/service, funding source, sex, and age for selected years from 2002 through 2020.

Cancer statistics

[ CDC WONDER ] United States Cancer Statistics: Incidence and mortality rates with stratification by cancer site, year, region, sex, race, and age.
[ CDC ] United States Cancer Statistics: Data Visualizations: Visualizations of incidence and mortality rates, survival, prevalence, screening adherence, and 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 of hospital bed and emergency department simulations.