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Modules pipeline

Unreleased software and other preliminary work is currently being developed into modules for modelling people, places, platforms and programs.

1 - Pipeline of people modules

Current unreleased work to develop modules for modelling the characteristics, relationships, behaviours, risk factors and outcomes of young people and those important to them.

Our current pipeline of modules for modelling people is principally focused on developing tools for:

  • creating synthetic household datasets from multiple longitudinal datasets of varying structure, including modules specifically designed to streamline wrangling data from the HILDA and LSAC datasets (both from Australia); and

  • implementing agent based model simulations.

A significant amount of work has already been completed on both projects and initial development releases of each, along with one scientific manuscript, are anticipated in late 2023 / early 2024.

2 - Pipeline of places modules

Current unreleased work to develop modules for modelling the demographic, environmental and proximity drivers of access, equity and outcomes in youth mental health.

Our current pipeline of modules for modelling places is principally focused on producing libraries to:

  • synthesise geometry and spatial attribute data;

  • simulate changes in spatial attribute count data (e.g. area resident populations);

  • predict prevalence and incidence by area; and

  • provide a user-interface (i.e. software to implement an updated version of the currently deprecated Springtides app).

Although unreleased, the source code for the above projects has been used to generate analysis during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initial development releases of places module libraries, along with an updated app, are anticipated in the second half of 2023.

3 - Pipeline of platforms modules

Current unreleased work to develop modules for modelling the optimal staffing and configuration of support services for young people.

Our current pipeline of modules for modelling platforms includes code for implementing:

  • a discrete event simulation of primary mental health services for young people;
  • a simple cohort model of early psychosis services; and
  • a blended (systems dynamics / discrete event simulation) model for optimising eligibility and referral policies across multiple services.

The first two of the above models are currently implemented in R and are sufficiently advanced to produce exploratory analysis. However, neither are adequately documented or tested and need to be redeveloped as ready4 model modules and re-validated prior to development releases. The optimisation model was implemented in Java and was populated with toy data - this will require more substantial development prior to public release.

4 - Pipeline of programs modules

Current very preliminary work to develop modules for modelling the affordability, value for money and appropriate targeting of interventions for young people.

A very early development release of bimp - a library for undertaking budget impact analysis, is currently available. However, as bimp is largely untested, undocumented and highly preliminary (e.g. not yet implemented as ready4 modules), we have chosen not to list it in the summary table of ready4 model module libraries. The pace of future development of bimp and new modules for efficiently deploying existing open source economic evaluation tools within the ready4 framework will depend on how we mobilise support from a nascent ready4 community.