AbstractsMedical & Health Science

A SYSTEM SIMULATION MODEL FOR TYPE 2 DIABETES IN THE SASKATOON HEALTH REGION

by Jin Zhang




Institution: University of Saskatchewan
Department:
Year: 2013
Keywords: System Dynamics, simulation, model, Type 2 Diabetes, Saskatoon Health Region, Aboriginal
Record ID: 1899453
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10388/ETD-2011-07-56


Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a prevailing chronic disease in Canada and around the world. The population with diabetes is rapidly increasing. The growth of diabetes prevalence places a heavy burden on the health care system and causes a significant loss to society. The prevention and treatment of diabetes is a complex problem that involves many parties such as government, health care system, communities and patients. It is very difficult to design cost-effective interventions that will suit all parties to slow the prevalence of diabetes. The diabetes-related burden, such as diabetes prevalence and incidence, in the Saskatoon Health Region were investigated by using the System Dynamics approach. A System Dynamics model was built based on the current diabetes situation of the Saskatoon Health Region. The model is able to simulate the entire disease progress as a dynamic system and to catch the interactions and feedbacks between factors. According to the simulation result, the diabetes prevalence and the number of incident cases will continue to increase in the next four decades. The model is able to help the decision-makers to observe the future impacts of current interventions and find bottlenecks, as well as key uncertainties. The model has the capability to answer many “what-if” and “why” questions. The decision-makers can use the model as a useful tool to evaluate different interventions by performing different experimental scenarios.