Health Forecasting (UCLA)
Health Forecasting (UCLA) is based at the UCLA School of Public Health and works closely with the Los Angeles County Department Of Public Health and California Department of Health Services.
The goal of the Health Forecasting project is to improve population health and reduce or eliminate health disparities through the development and communication of sound, credible forecasts of how the future health of populations and sub-populations can be improved by implementation of effective evidence-based public health policies and programmatic interventions. It is projected that the demographics of the United States will make dramatic racial and ethnic distribution shifts in the coming decades. These changes will result in different health outcomes for the emerging population groups, who will be disproportionately affected due to existing health outcome disparities.
The statistical model was based on research by Statistics Canada as a comprehensive framework that promotes understanding and thinking AbOUT human health at the population level. This framework provides a practical implementation foundation that integrates many concepts and IDeaS utilizing continuous-time microsimulation.
Currently Health Forecasting has a web-based tool that allows users to simulate conditions of their communities in order to provide informative health outcome reports and charts detailing access to health care and behavioral risk factors. Health Forecasting encourages community involvement and policy change driven by the grassroots level.