Health microsimulation models are widely used to simulate the impact of health policies at the population level before they are implemented and have traditionally been focussed on health expenditure, the ageing population, mortality and highly prevalent chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer and heart diseases. With the emerging field of genomics and precision medicine, it has now been increasingly possible to obtain a genetic diagnosis of rare conditions such as intellectual disability, which helps parents to guide targetted therapies and provides information necessary for the use of reproductive technologies. Genetic diagnosis of previously difficult to treat conditions such as high risk childhood cancer and genetic blindness has made it possible to develop targeted therapies for those conditions.
In this session, we present three health microsimulation models focussed on genomics and rare conditions. The first paper presents the lifetime health and societal costs of familial intellectual disability using a microsimulation model IDGenMOD which is based on a cohort of families with intellectual disability.
The second paper presents the development of PeCanMOD, a microsimulation model to analyse the cost-effectiveness of precision medicine in childhood cancer. This model is based on New South Wales cancer registry and hospital admission data and simulates the impacts of precision medicine on hospital costs and expected life years gained.
The third paper presents a microsimulation model to simulate the impact of population wide preconception carrier screening for heritable diseases on the health system and the cost-effectiveness of preconception carrier screening. The model is based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics population census data and simulates different reproductive choices one might make based on information about their carrier status and the risk of passing on a condition to future offspring.
Key topics: Genomics, Precision medicine, Rare diseases, Preconception carrier screening