Course Level: Beginner
Course Limit: 25
Format Requirements: This course will consist of a mix of didactic lectures, interactive scenario planning, and a hands-on demonstration of SMART Vaccines. Didactic lectures will be followed with a group role-playing session, with groups adopting the perspectives of various types of stakeholders, then using SMART Vaccines in their “as if” roles. Attendees will benefit by bringing their own personal computer to allow personal hands-on use of SMART Vaccines. Use will require installing a MATLAB compiler to run the SMART Vaccines package, which will function in Windows, Mac and LINUX environments. Both the compiler and software will be provided to registered course attendees in advance of use.
Background: Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been applied in environmental, energy, and now most recently in health technology policy – the subject of this short course. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has developed the Strategic Multi-Attribute Ranking Tool for Vaccines (SMART Vaccines), a software tool using multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT), to help assist decision makers ranging from vaccine manufacturers to health ministries, basic research organizations to NGOs interested in new vaccine development and to facilitate dialog between interested stakeholders. The modeling approach appears in two reports: Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Framework (2012) and Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Tool (Sept/2013). Using SMART Vaccines as an interactive example, this short course will discuss the basics and practical applications of multi-criteria decision frameworks in support of resource allocation decisions for prioritization, and will demonstrate how MCDA approaches can inform and improve public policy decision making more generally.
Description and Objectives: This course is designed to introduce participants to the practical foundations of multi-criteria decision making, and how this approach could be applied in practice to support public policy decisions. The course will employ SMART Vaccines, a software program developed by the Institute of Medicine, as a case study and guidance tool for prioritizing new vaccine development. The course will discuss modeling issues, data demands, and involve hands-on use of the software with small groups “role-playing” as various potential user types with different perspectives.
- Review previous vaccine policy efforts, their benefits and limitations
- Review modeling choices and complexities
- Review requirements, sources, and strategies for augmenting data resources
- Provide hands-on use of SMART Vaccines and discuss groups’ inputs and results
- Review possible extensions of the SMART Vaccines model and future plans
- Discuss the potential for academic courses using SMART Vaccines
- Discuss MCDA approaches to public policy decision making in general.