An Asthma Policy Model.

Despite many proven advances in patient care over the last 10 years, asthma continues to impose a large and growing burden on society. Persistent clinician non-adherence to recommended practice is well documented, but little is known about the clinical impact and economic costs of alternative approaches to asthma patient care. In this chapter, we introduce the Asthma Policy Model, a state-transition simulation that we have developed to forecast asthma-related symptoms, acute exacerbations, quality-adjusted life expectancy, health care costs, and cost-effectiveness. We begin with a detailed survey of the epidemiological, clinical, and policy context that motivates our work. With a modeling audience in mind, we then describe the considerations that produced the current analytic structure and input datasets. We illustrate the policy relevance of the model by describing our recent work on the cost-effectiveness of inhaled corticosteroid therapy in a population of adult patients with mild-to-moderate disease. We close the chapter with a discussion of plans for future refinements and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]