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About

Microsimulation models are increasingly being used to help inform decision making in public health. Over the past several years, the Daffodil Centre has developed a suite of microsimulation models (Policy1) designed to estimate the impact of cancer control interventions, especially screening and surveillance strategies. In this presentation, we will first illustrate how disease-related microsimulation models can be designed, implemented, and parametrized. Using Policy1-Cervix and Policy1-Bowel as examples, we will then show how modelled evaluations have been used to inform cancer control policy in Australia and internationally. 

Bio

Dr Caruana has a D.Phil in Mathematics from the University of Oxford and is currently a Senior Research Fellow and Mathematical Modelling Stream lead at the Daffodil Centre, University of Sydney, a joint venture with Cancer Council NSW.  He has over ten years experience designing and implementing modelling projects across different research fields and is currently a member of the Daffodil Centre group working with WHO to inform long-term cervical cancer elimination planning and target setting.   In collaboration with other researchers at the Daffodil, he is involved in the development of models for the ongoing epidemiological and economic evaluation of changes in the detection, management and treatment of prostate cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer and melanoma, and the systematic screening for Lynch Syndrome. Dr. Caruana is also an investigator and statistician for the first ever large-scale trial of cervical cancer screening in a population offered HPV vaccination, ‘Compass’