[Population Modeling] Population modeling definition

[Stefan Scholz]

Hello all,

I think the definition hits the broad subject really well. Maybe I am 
seeing too much through the eyes of a health economist, but I would draw 
the line of population models right after (cohort) markov models. In my 
opinion mostly all of those cohort models ignore patient heterogeneity 
and focus more on the disease rather than the population. On the other 
hand I would say that "Individual Sampling Models" and DES as presented 
by Al Chrosny and Jon Karnon do incorporate patient heterogeneity and 
should be presented by the term "population model". So maybe we can draw 
the line between cohort and individual Markov models.

Best regards,
Stefan



On 07.01.2015 22:17, Jacob Barhak wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> There is a growing demand to define the term population modeling. This 
> need is visible in some recent personal communications.
>
> This post will try to bring some quotes from different people who try 
> to define it during conversation. I intend to use some of this in the 
> paper, so I am bringing it to the list first to get opinions of more 
> people.
>
> So here are key quotes:
>
> Sergey Nuzhdin USC:
>
> "we are doing lots of population / quantitative modeling, and i would 
> love to get engaged in human community;
>
> but so far, our efforts have been in Drosophila and plants"
>
> John Rice - Society for Simulation in Heathcare (SSiH)  government 
> relations vice chair:
>
> "Sergey,  perfect!  I want to learn about PopMod for non human 
> sciences and engineer applications.  If we had a population of trees 
> in a forrest,  in stead of a generalized collective description. Could 
> we predict the course of a forrest fire better?  Only beginning to 
> think about that, then here you are, modeling a populations of  plants."
>
> Sergey replying:
> " you are right, John, precisely what we are doing (among other things);
>
> how to predict collective properties from individual ones;
>
> there is plenty done about it when the subjects are homogeneous, and 
> very little when heterogeneous;"
>
> Madhav Marathe - Virginia Tech:
> "The population modeling group is intended to be broad. Ofcourse 
> making it way too broad might make it harder for a cohesive 
> conversation but we can see how it plays out. I am calling this 
> population of things; it appears things is the best word I can use to 
> keep the intended generality. We have studied cells, wireless devices, 
> people and animals in the past for instance."
>
> It seems that the above discussion matches the ad hoc definition we 
> reached at the IMAG meeting at the NIH:
>
> "Modeling a collection of entities with different levels of heterogeneity"
>
> We reached this definition quickly and it was a broad consensus. 
> However, others on the list may want to discuss this definition and 
> offer alternatives.
>
> For example Markov models address populations mostly as time series 
> and seldom consider differences between individual entities,  yet I 
> would still include Markov models under the umbrella of population 
> modeling. It is a difficult fit to the above definition unless 
> hetrogeneity among states is considered within time.
>
> I would appreciate your thoughts and will try to incorporate those in 
> the paper.
>
>           Jacob
>
>
>
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