PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Sizing up stockpiles of children's vaccines

Practical model could transform vaccine stockpile decisions

2010-09-10
(Press-News.org) A creative version of a classic engineering technique may improve decisions about building and using supplies of important pediatric vaccines, potentially leading to lower public health costs and healthier children.

The United States maintains a six-month supply of common pediatric vaccines to ensure protection from deadly diseases, such as the flu, polio, and diphtheria, despite interruptions in vaccine production. The stockpiles must be replenished as the vaccines are used or expire, and, because the manufacture of vaccines is a laborious and unreliable process, health officials must place orders for new vaccines up to a year in advance.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have developed a mathematical framework to better understand the implications of vaccine stockpile levels through evidence-based engineering principles. Industrial engineers Sheldon Jacobson of UIUC and Rubén Proaño of RIT, who specialize in operations research, and Janet Jokela, a specialist in public health and infectious diseases at UIUC, published this work in the online edition of the November 2010 Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization.

Deciding how many pediatric vaccine doses to order from year to year is no simple task. According to the researchers, "The decision must balance several objectives that sometimes conflict." These include: minimizing the impact of vaccine shortages, maintaining or increasing vaccine coverage, and minimizing vaccine costs (including costs from unused vaccine).

The number of doses to order also may also depend on the importance of the vaccine. Some vaccines are easier to obtain than others, some diseases are more contagious or more deadly than others, and society has higher immunity levels against some pediatric diseases than others.

The researchers' model for setting stockpile levels is a novel adaptation of the "utility maximization problem" (UMP). One everyday example of a UMP is the set of considerations involved in choosing a car--such as cost, performance, and gas mileage--that a buyer must weigh based on relative importance. The best car for a particular buyer will depend on his or her preferences.

"UMPs have long been used by engineers and businesspeople to optimize decisions," explains Jacobson. "What's unique about this work is the way we customized the UMP to take into account multiple objectives and criteria." The mathematical framework allows health officials to see the optimal stockpile levels for different initial conditions and preferences of public health officials.

"The framework developed by Jacobson and his collaborators begins a new and richer dialogue about vaccine stockpiling," says Russell Barton, NSF program director for Service Enterprise Systems. "The likely result will be better decisions on setting vaccine stockpiling policies. But the framework of multi-attribute utility theory has the potential to transform many processes for setting health-care policy. "

Through eight hypothetical scenarios, the researchers demonstrated how different approaches to managing stockpiles of six pediatric vaccines have different implications for public health. When initial conditions are poor, due to low stockpiles and/or low vaccine coverage, the scenarios revealed that the preferences of the public health decision-maker can significantly affect what the optimal stockpile size would be.

For example, if vaccine coverage is high but the stockpile inventory is low, a preference for minimizing the impact of vaccine shortages might focus vaccine resources on just a few important diseases. Under these same conditions, a decision-maker who also considers vaccine coverage and cost would focus resources on only the one most important disease.

"In a number of likely scenarios," Jacobson says, "our research indicates that one size does not fit all when it comes to the optimal size of the vaccine stockpiles." Depending on the relative importance of a disease, health officials may decide to maintain more or less than a six-month supply of vaccine.

According to Jacobson, the model also demonstrates that the vaccine stockpile could be used strategically to actively increase vaccine coverage or to protect society from disease outbreaks. He says, "At the beginning of an especially virulent disease outbreak, for example, it may even make sense to deplete the vaccine stockpile."

The researchers say that their approach could be modified to include other factors or conditions involved in decisions about vaccine stockpiles. One avenue to explore within the framework is the impact of a potential vaccine shortage in terms of the number of fatalities or QALYs (quality-adjusted life-years, which take into account both quantity and the quality of life generated by health care interventions). Another area of investigation, given the long-lasting effect of vaccination, is to extend the current model over multiple time periods.

INFORMATION:

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LiXEdrom: Innovative measuring chamber for X-ray study of liquid jets

2010-09-10
X-rays are the medium of choice for many scientific studies. When you shine them on a sample, they literally shed light on the material's structure, providing loads of information about it. Unfortunately, this mostly applies to solids only, since the sample has to be in a vacuum for the entire time it is being irradiated with soft X-rays. For liquids, that means you have to remove all the water. In the case of biological samples such as proteins, however, this destroys their natural environment. The solution to this problems has always been to measure liquids through membranes. ...

Special focus on glycomics in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology

2010-09-10
New Rochelle, NY, September 10, 2010—The glycome, encompassing all of the complex sugars produced by an organism, is comprised of multiple families of molecules whose function in the human body is often determined by the structure, composition, and placement of the attached sugars, as explored in a comprehensive look at the field of glycomics in a group of key articles in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The relevant articles are available free online at www.liebertpub.com/omi Guest ...

Drug holds promise to halt debilitating condition of diabetes

2010-09-10
LAWRENCE — A drug developed at the University of Kansas has the potential to stop a debilitating condition of diabetes that often leads to pain in the extremities and even amputations, KU researchers have found. The researchers recently published an article showing that KU-32 can stop and even reverse diabetic peripheral neuropathy, or DPN, in mice. The condition leads to death of nerves in the extremities of individuals with diabetes. "People with DPN can be very sensitive to light touch, which can cause significant pain," said Rick Dobrowsky, professor of pharmacology ...

The precious commodity of water

2010-09-10
As the General Assembly of the UN resolved on July 28 of this year, clean drinking water and basic sanitary provision are human rights. Unfortunately, there are more than one billion people all over the world who do not have access to drinking water, while as many as 2.6 billion people live without any sanitary systems at all – that is well over one-third of the world's population. Not only that, water is a pre-eminent economic factor because agriculture and industry consume more than four-fifths of this precious commodity these days. A study by the UN indicates that ...

Research shows unemployment programs lacking for people with disabilities

2010-09-10
LAWRENCE — Federal programs to assist the unemployed are failing job seekers with disabilities, according to an investigation by Jean Hall and Kathy Parker of the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas. The KU study, published recently in the Career Development Quarterly, shows two major federal programs — the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which requires recipients to find employment within two years, and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which set up "One-Stop" centers to cluster services for the unemployed — have inadequacies ...

Playing snooker with atoms

Playing snooker with atoms
2010-09-10
Designed to be the most spectacular concert hall in Germany, the construction of the Elbe Philharmonic Hall in Hamburg is a controversial project, but it is already creating a sensation in the architectural world. Nobody has ever tried to build windows this high, each one five meters tall, of unique dimensions, and glazed with multifunctional insulating glass. The demands on the architectural glass used in modern structures like this are increasing all the time. Quite apart from their large surface area, they also have to offer outstanding optical characteristics and at ...

A smart use for wisdom teeth: Making stem cells

2010-09-10
VIDEO: MSCs taken from wisdom teeth and reprogrammed into stem cells can become numerous other cell types, like these beating cardiomyocytes. Click here for more information. For most people, wisdom teeth are not much more than an annoyance that eventually needs to be removed. However, a new study appearing in the September 17 Journal of Biological Chemistry shows that wisdom teeth contain a valuable reservoir of tissue for the creation of stem cells; thus, everyone might ...

Discovery offers hope of saving sub-Saharan crops from devastating parasites

Discovery offers hope of saving sub-Saharan crops from devastating parasites
2010-09-10
TORONTO, ON – Each year, thousands of acres of crops are planted throughout Africa, Asia and Australia only to be laid to waste by a parasitic plant called Striga, also known as witchweed. It is one of the largest challenges to food security in Africa, and a team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Toronto have discovered chemicals and genes that may break Striga's stranglehold. When crops grow, their roots release a plant hormone called strigolactone. If the soil contains Striga seed, it will use the released strigolactone as a cue to germinate and ...

Graphene may hold key to speeding up DNA sequencing

Graphene may hold key to speeding up DNA sequencing
2010-09-10
Cambridge, Mass. - September 9, 2010 - In a paper published as the cover story of the September 9, 2010 Nature, researchers from Harvard University and MIT have demonstrated that graphene, a surprisingly robust planar sheet of carbon just one-atom thick, can act as an artificial membrane separating two liquid reservoirs. By drilling a tiny pore just a few-nanometers in diameter, called a nanopore, in the graphene membrane, they were able to measure exchange of ions through the pore and demonstrated that a long DNA molecule can be pulled through the graphene nanopore just ...

WideStance Productions Announces New Musical Spoof, "Fairies With Children - The Yes on Hate Episode"

2010-09-10
FAIRIES WITH CHILDREN OPENS TO FIGHT FOR GAY EQUALITY (Drag Musical Spoof focuses on the Suburban Conservative as the key to changing hearts and minds of all Americans) The new musical spoof "Fairies With Children, The Yes On Hate Episode" will open October 22nd at the Meta Theatre 7801 Melrose Avenue for a six week run, Friday and Saturday only at 8pm. The show exposes the anti gay agenda prevalent in the suburbs of California. The gender bending parody is being produced by WideStance Productions (The Golden Gays). A percentage of the proceeds from the show will ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Reality check: making indoor smartphone-based augmented reality work

Overthinking what you said? It’s your ‘lizard brain’ talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain

Black men — including transit workers — are targets for aggression on public transportation, study shows

Troubling spike in severe pregnancy-related complications for all ages in Illinois

Alcohol use identified by UTHealth Houston researchers as most common predictor of escalated cannabis vaping among youths in Texas

Need a landing pad for helicopter parenting? Frame tasks as learning

New MUSC Hollings Cancer Center research shows how Golgi stress affects T-cells' tumor-fighting ability

#16to365: New resources for year-round activism to end gender-based violence and strengthen bodily autonomy for all

Earliest fish-trapping facility in Central America discovered in Maya lowlands

São Paulo to host School on Disordered Systems

New insights into sleep uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function

USC announces strategic collaboration with Autobahn Labs to accelerate drug discovery

Detroit health professionals urge the community to act and address the dangers of antimicrobial resistance

3D-printing advance mitigates three defects simultaneously for failure-free metal parts 

Ancient hot water on Mars points to habitable past: Curtin study

In Patagonia, more snow could protect glaciers from melt — but only if we curb greenhouse gas emissions soon

Simplicity is key to understanding and achieving goals

Caste differentiation in ants

Nutrition that aligns with guidelines during pregnancy may be associated with better infant growth outcomes, NIH study finds

New technology points to unexpected uses for snoRNA

Racial and ethnic variation in survival in early-onset colorectal cancer

Disparities by race and urbanicity in online health care facility reviews

Exploring factors affecting workers' acquisition of exercise habits using machine learning approaches

Nano-patterned copper oxide sensor for ultra-low hydrogen detection

Maintaining bridge safer; Digital sensing-based monitoring system

A novel approach for the composition design of high-entropy fluorite oxides with low thermal conductivity

A groundbreaking new approach to treating chronic abdominal pain

ECOG-ACRIN appoints seven researchers to scientific committee leadership positions

New model of neuronal circuit provides insight on eye movement

Cooking up a breakthrough: Penn engineers refine lipid nanoparticles for better mRNA therapies

[Press-News.org] Sizing up stockpiles of children's vaccines
Practical model could transform vaccine stockpile decisions