Economics, simulation modelling and diabetes: Mount Hood Asia Challenge

Professor Philip Clarke, Professor Andrew Palmer and Ms Michelle Tew at the Centre for Health Policy were key members of the organising committee charged with delivering the first Mount Hood Challenge conference held in Asia, hosted by Chung-Ang University in Korea on 30 November – 1 December 2019.

Traditionally, the Mt Hood Challenge conference is a biennial meeting of diabetes modelling groups from Australia, Europe and North America who aim to present recent studies on economic aspects of diabetes and its complications, discuss simulation techniques and compare the results. In this additional edition of the conference, challenges were developed to promote the use of health economics and diabetes simulation models across the Asian region. The conference attracted participation of Diabetes modelling groups from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, UK, USA, Netherlands, Belgium and Australia, and academic as well as industrial researchers from other countries such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

In this 2019 conference, Dr An Duy Tran delivered a talk about a comprehensive outcomes simulation model for type 1 diabetes (COSMO-T1D) that he has developed together with other members of the Health Economics Unit including Mr Josh Knight, Professor Andrew Palmer and Professor Philip Clarke. Using the COSMO-T1D, Dr An Duy Tran demonstrated how life expectancy and quality-adjusted life expectancy in male and female patients at different ages and with a wide range of risk factors could be estimated, and how impact of diabetes interventions on life expectancy could be captured.

A modelling workshop held at the end of the conference and led by Professor Andrew Palmer and Professor Philip Clarke highlighted practical approaches to all aspects of diabetes simulation modelling, with a specific focus on Asia. The next Mt Hood Challenge conference will be held in Chicago, USA on 16-18 June 2020.