Development of an asthma policy model for Canada: Lifetime Exposures and Asthma outcomes Projection

by Tae Yoon Lee, John Petkau, Kate M. Johnson, Stuart E.

Turvey, Amin Adibi, Padmaja Subbarao, Ainsleigh Hill, Mark Ewert, Mohsen Sadatsafavi Objectives To address the need for health policy planning focused on early interventions for asthma, we developed the Lifetime Exposures and Asthma outcomes Projection (LEAP), a reference policy model for asthma in Canada. Methods Based on a previously developed concept map, we used an open-population microsimulation design to deal with the multidimensionality of risk factors and the need for modelling realistic aspects of adopting health technologies.

The model consists of five intertwined modules: demographics, risk factors, asthma occurrence, asthma outcomes, and payoffs. The demographics module was based on sex- and age-specific estimates and projections from national surveys.

For the first version of the model, we concentrated on key risk factors from the concept map: age, sex, family history of asthma at birth, and exposure to antibiotics in the first year of life. The distributions of risk factors were estimated from population-based administrative databases and a population-based longitudinal birth cohort.