JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Hepatitis C is a disease that stems largely from lifestyle and risks incurred by individuals.

Objective:

An interactive gamified policy tool was created to understand the impact of policies related to Hepatitis C in the disease’s epidemiology indicators on a yearly basis until 2030, designated as Let’s End HepC (LEHC).

Methods:

To address these aspects, an innovative epidemiological model with two components was developed: a mathematic component based on Markov chains that models the natural history of the disease; a statistical component that reflects the degree of application of each of the 24 public health policies considered on the mathematical epidemiological model through Adaptive Conjoint Analysis.

Results:

This double imputation model makes it possible to assess a set of indicators such as liver transplant, incidence, deaths, etc., year by year, until 2030, in different risk groups. Populations at higher risk were integrated into the model to understand specific epidemiological dynamics within the population of each country and segments that comprise people who have received blood products, prisoners, people who inject drugs, vertical transmission cases and the remaining population.

Conclusions:

The LEHC model allows simulating different degrees of implementation of each policy, verifying its impact on each of the studied populations and the population in general. The gamification of the model allows assessing the adequate fulfilment of the WHO goals for the elimination of Hepatitis C by 2030. This has already been applied to a group of countries, five of which have already been concluded, showing results very close to those admitted through other forms of evaluation.