On 2015 Jan 09, T Eugene Day commented:

This is a very interesting paper, applying DES to a major public health issue on a phenomenally large scale. Modeling individuals for a nation-wide analysis of risk is ambitious and relevant. The authors do an excellent job of explaining the value of simulation over, for example, Markov modeling in this setting, and provide useful and significant implications for policy makers.

I might quibble with their definition of "internal validation", but the model is overall very well validated, and they describe the process usefully and thoroughly. This is an excellent example of leveraging the strengths of simulation to provide both economic and health policy insights in a very complex environment. Well done.

On 2015 Jan 09, T Eugene Day commented:

This is a very interesting paper, applying DES to a major public health issue on a phenomenally large scale. Modeling individuals for a nation-wide analysis of risk is ambitious and relevant. The authors do an excellent job of explaining the value of simulation over, for example, Markov modeling in this setting, and provide useful and significant implications for policy makers.

I might quibble with their definition of "internal validation", but the model is overall very well validated, and they describe the process usefully and thoroughly. This is an excellent example of leveraging the strengths of simulation to provide both economic and health policy insights in a very complex environment. Well done.