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. 2020 Summer;13(2):21-60.
doi: 10.34196/ijm.00217.

Introducing CASCADEPOP: an open-source sociodemographic simulation platform for us health policy appraisal

Alan Brennan  1 , Charlotte Buckley  2 , Tuong Manh Vu  1 , Charlotte Probst  3 , Alexandra Nielsen  4 , Hao Bai  2 , Thomas Broomhead  5 , Thomas Greenfield  4 , William Kerr  4 , Petra S Meier  6 , JüRgen Rehm  7 , Paul Shuper  7 , Mark Strong  6 , Robin C Purshouse  2
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Introducing CASCADEPOP: an open-source sociodemographic simulation platform for us health policy appraisal

Alan Brennan et al. Int J Microsimul. 2020 Summer.

Abstract

Largescale individual-level and agent-based models are gaining importance in health policy appraisal and evaluation. Such models require the accurate depiction of the jurisdiction's population over extended time periods to enable modeling of the development of non-communicable diseases under consideration of historical, sociodemographic developments. We developed CASCADEPOP to provide a readily available sociodemographic micro-synthesis and microsimulation platform for US populations. The micro-synthesis method used iterative proportional fitting to integrate data from the US Census, the American Community Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Multiple Cause of Death Files, and several national surveys to produce a synthetic population aged 12 to 80 years on 01/01/1980 for five states (California, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee, and Texas) and the US. Characteristics include individuals' age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital/employment/parental status, education, income and patterns of alcohol use as an exemplar health behavior. The microsimulation simulates individuals' sociodemographic life trajectories over 35 years to 31/12/2015 accounting for population developments including births, deaths, and migration. Results comparing the 1980 micro-synthesis against observed data shows a successful depiction of state and US population characteristics and of drinking. Comparing the microsimulation over 30 years with Census data also showed the successful simulation of sociodemographic developments. The CASCADEPOP platform enables modelling of health behaviors across individuals' life courses and at a population level. As it contains a large number of relevant sociodemographic characteristics it can be further developed by researchers to build US agent-based models and microsimulations to examine health behaviors, interventions, and policies.

Keywords: AGENT-BASED MODELING; ALCOHOL USE; DEMOGRAPHY; MICROSIMULATION MODELS; PUBLIC HEALTH; SOCIAL SIMULATION; UNITED STATES.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic describing the steps taken to generate the baseline and migrant and 12-year-old populations over time, and the steps taken during each year of the microsimulation over time. 1Note migration rates are adjusted rates based on procedure described in detail in Appendix E.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Validation of Micro-synthesis for the USA 1980:- modelled synthetic population compared to observed 1980 Census data for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, social roles status and income.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Validation over 30 years: Comparison of microsimulation population with observed US Census data by sex, age and race/ethnicity for the USA in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Validation over 30 years. Comparison of microsimulation population social roles with observed US Census data (employment and marriage) and PSID data (parenting) for the United States 1980–2010
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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