Optima applications to other diseases

The Optima approach can be applied to address problems for other disease areas across health sectors, and to approach problems where analytical support can assist decision making outside health.

Given a burden (disease / social / educational / etc), possible responses and programs which could be employed - each with different implementations costs and/or levels of effectiveness, the Optima approach can potentially assist to optimize the use of available resources and/or identify priority areas to best meet strategic objectives over defined time horizons, subject to ethical, political, logistic and economic constraints.

Other Optima tools are in development or planned to address other areas in health and outside health. The Optima Team also welcomes discussions from potential partners in established and new application areas.

The Optima Consortium is currently in the process of developing products for:

  • Hepatitis B
  • Hypertension and diabetes
  • Other non-communicable diseases
  • Neglected tropical diseases
  • Maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH)

Technical reports for applications on:

Needle-syringe programs

Model-based cost-effectiveness and impact assessment of needle-syringe programs in Ontario, Canada from 2006–2015

S.L. Kelly, X.F. Yap, S. Hainsworth, R.M. Stuart, D.P. Wilson (2017)

Technical Report for the Ministry of Health, Ontario, Canada [PDF]

Return on Investment of Needle-Syringe Programs in the Philippines

Wilson DP, Reyes J, Kerr CC, Gray RT (2013)

The World Bank Group [PDF]
[Policy brief]

Return on investment 2: evaluating the cost-effectiveness of needle and syringe programs among injecting drug users in Australia

D. Wilson, J. Kwon, J. Anderson, H.H. Thein, M. Law, L. Maher, G. Dore, J. Kaldor. (2009)

National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of New South Wales [PDF]

Harm reduction

Return on Investment and Cost-Effectiveness of Harm Reduction Programmes in Malaysia

Naning H, Kerr CC, Kamarulzaman, Dahlui AM, Ng CW, Wilson DP (2014)

The World Bank Group

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of harm reduction. UNODC Science Addressing Drugs and HIV: State of the Art Scientific Consensus for High Level Segment of the 55th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

D.P. Wilson. (2013)

UNODC [PDF]

The cost-effectiveness of needle-syringe exchange programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: costing, data synthesis, modeling and economics for eight case study countries

D.P. Wilson, L. Zhang, C.C. Kerr, A. Uusküla, J.A. Kwon, A. Hoare, K. Sharapka, T. Balabayev, A. Yakusik, E. Gvozdeva, G. Ionascu, D. Otiashvili, T. Grigoryan, A. Soliev, M. Williams-Sherlock, C. Avila on behalf of the Technical Working Group to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of needle-syringe exchange programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (2012)

UNAIDS Technical Report, Geneva, Switzerland [PDF]
[Supplementary Material]