Starting date: November 2021
Work Programme
The overall goal of the Public Health Decision Science Team (PHDS) is to inform public health decision-making at a global and local level on the basis on predictive models combining high-quality empirical data and advanced algorithms. This initiative focuses on cancers related to infectious agents in both high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries; working concomitantly in both settings will accelerate knowledge and technology transfer from high-resource to low-resource settings.
PHDS is developing an open-source modelling platform, called METHIS (ModElling Tools for HPV Infection-related cancers), dedicated to modelling the natural history and control of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer. The platform encompasses a range of integrated models of increasing complexity and flexibility. This approach makes it possible to adapt public health projections of the expected impact of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening on the occurrence of cervical cancer to context-specific needs and locally available data sets.
Concomitantly, PHDS is conducting field studies aimed at assessing the actual impact of HPV vaccination in selected countries. The collected data will then be used to inform the modelling platform and provide context-specific recommendations about cervical cancer control. These recommendations will be useful not only to the public health authorities of a specific country but also to stakeholders from countries that are less advanced in the adoption of cervical cancer control measures. To achieve its goals, PHDS collaborates with other IARC teams as well as with other organizations and funders, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), European Union (EU)-funded consortia, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
In the future, the experience acquired in the field of cervical cancer control will be expanded to assess the impact of population-based control measures against other cancer types related to infectious agents, such as gastric cancer.
Team Composition
Team Leader: Dr Iacopo Baussano, Early Detection, Prevention, and Infections Branch (EPR), IARC
Email: BaussanoI@iarc.who.int
Team members:
Dr Indira Adhikari (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Dr Partha Basu (Branch Head, EPR)
Dr Freddie Bray (Branch Head, CSU)
Mr Maxime Bonjour (Doctoral Student, EPR)
Dr Gary Clifford (Deputy Branch Head, EPR)
Dr Abrham Wondimu Dagne (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Ms Philippine Gason (Project Assistant, EPR)
Mr Damien Georges (Senior Research Assistant, Data Management/Analysis, EPR)
Dr Andrea Gini (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Dr Alina Macacu (Consultant, EPR)
Dr Irene Man (Scientist, EPR)
Dr Jin Young Park (Scientist, EPR)
Dr Mary Luz Rol (Scientist, EPR)
Ms Vanessa Tenet (Senior Research Assistant, Data Management/Analysis, EPR)
Dr Rachel Wittenauer (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Former team members:
Mr Andrei Cividjian (Master’s Student, EPR)
Mr Mattis Eynard (Master’s Student, EPR)
Dr Ahmad Fuady (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Key networks: Risk-Based Screening for Cervical Cancer (RISCC) Consortium, HPV Board, Coalition to Strengthen the HPV Immunization Community (CHIC) Council
Key funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), World Health Organization (WHO)