Welcome to this month's edition of the Center for Health Decision Science (CHDS) newsletter. Explore recent decision science publications, upcoming events, and news within the field.

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CHDS seminars feature national and international decision science experts. The seminars are virtual via Zoom and require pre-registration using the link provided below.

Speakers share their own perspectives; they do not speak for the Center for Health Decision Science or for Harvard University.

Christopher Jackson, University of Cambridge, UK

April 23, 1:00 pm EDT

Multi-state models for changes in a state (e.g., of health or illness) often assume that the transition rate is constant with time spent in the state (the "Markov" assumption). In this seminar, Jackson proposes a new method and software package to relax this often-unrealistic assumption, using hidden states known as "phases." This is motivated by applications such as modelling the duration of infections, modelling time in a detectable state in cancer screening, and modelling cognitive impairment in studies of ageing.

Doctoral students Janice Jhang, Jenna Rogers, Skye Yoden, and Hanxuan (Astrid) Yu are the 2026 recipients of the Raiffa Fund Award. The Fund supports the training of scholars pursuing doctoral studies in decision and risk analysis and is administered by CHDS.

CHDS affiliate Ole Norheim was appointed chair of the new National Council for Priority Setting and Sustainability in Health and Social Care Services established under the Norwegian government’s Ministry of Health and Care Services. The new council will act as a national forum for strategic and policy-level discussions on priority issues and long-term sustainability in the Norwegian healthcare sector.

CHDS’s Jacob Jameson, fourth-year student in the Decision Science track of the Harvard PhD Program in Health Policy, was a finalist in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition for his thesis, “The Impact of Batching Advanced Imaging Tests in Emergency Departments.” 

CHDS welcomes Tiange Chen this spring. Chen is a visiting PhD student from Peking University. While at CHDS she will be working on a project evaluating the cost-effectiveness of GLP-1 drugs on obesity in China, under the guidance of CHDS’s Ankur Pandya.

CHDS’s Jinyi Zhu and Ankur Pandya modeled targeted screening for asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis (ACAS) to assess cost-effectiveness in preventing ischemic stroke. The research team also included CHDS students Janice Jhang and Hanxuan (Astrid) Yu, as well as CHDS affiliate John Giardina.

This article evaluates the effectiveness of expanded prenatal syphilis screening mandates in the US. The researchers found that adding screening in the third trimester and at delivery was associated with a short-term 26% increase in maternal syphilis case detection, but declined the following year, although it remained positive.

Harvard Chan news, Congenital syphilis, on the rise, requires response beyond screening mandates

Barbosa C, Chen Q, Sahinkoc M et al. Impact of Enhanced Practices on Opioid Overdose Deaths: A Community-Based Modeling Approach. Addiction. 2026 Mar 5. Online ahead of print.

Baum SE, Agha L, Menzies NA et al. Prenatal Syphilis Screening Mandates and Maternal Syphilis Case Detection. JAMA Health Forum. 2026 Mar 20;7(3):e260123.

Bedi NS, Yoden SS, Pandya A. Contributions of Decision Science to Ethical Priority-Setting in Climate and Health Research. Bull World Health Organ. 2026 Mar 1;104(3):197-199.

Burger EA, Laprise JF, Spencer JC et al. Single-Dose HPV Vaccination in the United States - A Multi-Modeling Analysis. Lancet Reg Health Am. 2026 Mar;55:101361.

Cohen B, Ren B, Hanage W et al. Modeling the Effects of Routine Screening for Accidental Lab-Acquired Infections on the Risk of Potential Pandemic Pathogen Escape from High-Biosafety Research Facilities. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 2026; 14: 1714582.

Ellyson AM, Mendoza JA, Liese AD et al. Healthcare and Nonhealthcare Costs: Youth with Diabetes and Food Insecurity. Am J Prev Med. 2026 Mar;70(3):108028.

Lopes R, Lan Y, Chitwood MH et al. Quantifying the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the First Two Epidemic Waves of SARS-CoV-2 Infections in the United States. PLoS Comput Biol. 2026 Mar 4;22(3):e1013983.

Musicus AA, Barrett JL, McCulloch S et al. Cost-Effectiveness and Health Equity Improvements from Excluding Sugar-Sweetened Beverages from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Am J Prev Med. 2026 Mar;70(3):108082.

Nemzoff C, Menzies NA, Bozzani F et al. Using Secondary Costing Data to Inform Priority Setting: A Survey of Current Approaches for TB. The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. 2026 Mar 27;30(4):156-160.

Pei P, Qoshe L, Florance G et al. Component Clinical and Cost Outcomes Complementing Value of Information: Case Study of a Tuberculosis Diagnostics Clinical Trial. Pharmacoeconomics. 2026 Mar 6. Online ahead of print.

Samur S, Gursel E, Gu NY et al. Microsimulation Model to Identify Suboptimal Recurrence Detection in Patients with Colorectal Cancer Following the Current Standard of Care. BMJ Open. 2026 Mar 13;16(3):e111289.

Spencer JC, Burger EA, Portnoy A et al. Adapting Sexual Behavior Survey Data to Parameterize an Agent-Based Model of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Transmission. Med Decis Making. 2026 Mar 6. Online ahead of print.

Instructor or Assistant Professor, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Division of Child Health Research and Policy