A Framework to Study the Emergence of Non-Communicable Diseases

Objective: To design a framework for creating computational models that support the understanding of emergent mechanisms for non-communicable diseases.Scope: The national and global burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) represent a major public health challenge that undermines the social and economic development in countries with limited resources. For instance, Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) accounted for four out of five deaths in Jamaica and it was the most significant contributor to non-communicable diseases. CVDs are caused by a cluster of comorbidities and lifestyle behaviors that interact to promote a vascular risk. However, their combined effect on CVDs have not been established because of interdependency, nonlinearity and feedback loops. In this research, we developed a computational model based on the Overview, Design concepts, and Details (OOD) protocol to understand the emergence of CVDs in the population. The pattern of this behavior is determined by the interaction of causal relationships among the risk factors. This work has inspired a framework that can be used to model the emergence of non-communicable diseases as complex systems.Results: Understanding the behavior of the Jamaican system provided insights to the creation of a novel framework for NCD emergent patterns. The framework could potentially reduce development cost and time of NCD management systems, since it supports an iterative modeling paradigm. The framework is dynamic enough to be applied in different populations, health states, and various NCDs.