Use of modeling for decision-making by national malaria programs: CHAI perspective

Arnaud Le Menach and Bradley Didier from the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) presented on “Use of modeling for decision making by national malaria programs: CHAI perspective.” They outlined CHAI’s mission and approach to supporting malaria control programs, provided examples of projects with modeler engagement, and shared lessons learned to improve the applicability and usefulness of modeling work to country programs in Mozambique and Haiti. Examples of past projects illustrated how switching from pursuing externally-driven questions to having the program drive the process supported by modelers and operational staff embedded within the country programs improve the uptake of analytics and modeling for decision-making. Arnaud and Bradley emphasized that, in CHAI’s experience, coordinating modeling activities with the NMCP planning cycle and decision deadlines, communicating, and iterating on the modeling process and outputs have been key for the successful integration of models: beginning modeling activities sufficiently in advance of deadlines allows for unrushed, high-quality modeling work and iterative discussions with feedback from the NMCP. Looking to the future of modeling work, Arnaud and Bradley highlighted several areas where modeling may be of particular assistance to decision-makers. These include further exploring P. vivax modeling, assessing the impact of case management, linking costing with epidemiological outcomes, and optimizing resource allocation of new and existing tools.