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Introduction

The Burden of Disease Epidemiology, Equity and Cost-Effectiveness Programme  (BODE³) was a Health Research Council funded research programme. It has studied the health and wider societal gains, costs, cost-effectiveness and equity impacts of health sector interventions, and has built capacity in modelling of health sector interventions.

Health Research Council funding for the BODE3 Programme officially finished in January 2022. This programme of research has produced important evidence on the health impacts and cost effectiveness of a range of policies and interventions for Aotearoa New Zealand. It has also supported many staff in developing skills in the field of epidemiological/health economic modelling. Going forward, there are a number of modelling research projects that will be continuing in the Department of Public Health and these projects will form a research network: SiHMNet: Simulation Health Modelling Network. Additional work that builds on BODE³ tobacco modelling is being led by the University of Melbourne.

Details of these projects, their weblinks and the researchers to contact are included below.

Sustainable diets for Aotearoa New Zealand

This Healthier Lives funded research (2020–2023) aims to identify an optimal diet that keeps New Zealand (NZ) within the safe operating space for greenhouse gas emissions whilst still meeting population dietary requirements at minimised cost. The effects of this healthy, sustainable diet, as well as policies to help New Zealanders move towards this diet, will be modelled to estimate their health effects, impact on ethnic health inequities, environmental impacts and costs. Consultation will take place to identify policies that are considered feasible and acceptable to policy makers and the public, especially Māori, in order to increase the chances of these policies being adopted.

This research will provide policymakers and practitioners with information on how best to improve population diets to maximise net health and environmental co-benefits and to decrease health inequities in NZ.

Research contacts:

Further information on a sustainable diet for health and the climate in Aotearoa New Zealand

Seeking the Transport Sweet Spot: health, equity, and zero carbon

This HRC funded project (2020–2023) explores a range of scenarios for a low-carbon transport system for NZ (with particular focus on electric car uptake; a transport system that aims to maximise health in the population; and a transport system that achieves the aspirations of Māori). It will determine the packages of policies needed to implement each scenario (such as policies to promote cycling or increase public transport). Finally, using a macro simulation model it will estimate the transport, economic, health and equity outcomes of each scenario out to 2070.

The results from this research will allow us to compare the health gains or losses across the important health impacts of the transport system (air pollution, injury; physical activity and noise), equity impacts and cost-effectiveness of the different low-carbon transport system scenarios.

Research contacts:

Further information on seeking the transport sweet spot: health, equity and zero carbon

Modelling or economic evaluation as part of your research projects

If you are interested in including modelling or economic evaluation as part of your research projects, contracting our staff or want to know more information about specific areas of modelling please contact the following researchers:

Prioritising Māori health and equity:

Diet and Sustainable Nutrition:

Physical activity:

Tobacco control:

Tony Blakely at the University of Melbourne is leading extensions of the BODE³ tobacco/vaping model (analyses for both NZ and Australia). Nick Wilson provides ongoing advice on this work.

Alcohol control:

Sustainable transport:

BODE3's Health Intervention League Table (HILT)

The BODE3 Interactive Health Intervention League Table allows you to compare interventions on health gain, cost and cost-effectiveness, for many interventions evaluated by BODE3 in New Zealand, and other New Zealand and Australian evaluations that meet criteria for comparability. It enables researchers and policy-makers to get an informed 'first impression' of which health interventions to give further consideration. For more information on how it works, see our Health Intervention League Table blog series.

BODE3's DIET symposium

On September 4th we hosted a full-day symposium on 'Tackling Diet-related Disease in New Zealand - the need, the evidence, the priorities'. More info, including an overview document of each presentation, is available here.

NZCMS/CT Data Explorer

This Data Explorer allows you to interactively graph Mortality and Cancer incidence data by age, sex, ethnicity, income and education (more data on smoking to be added in the coming months). The graphs are of publication quality and you can also use the tool to download any data that you might need - NZCMS/CT Data Explorer


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Related info

Contact us

BODE³ Programme
Department of Public Health
University of Otago, Wellington
PO Box 7343
Wellington South 6242
New Zealand
Tel +64 4 918 5072
Email bode3@otago.ac.nz

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