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SMART Vaccines Software Updates
Scott Levin, Ph.D., Sauleh Siddiqui, Ph.D., and Patricia Satjapot, M.S. Johns Hopkins University
Enhancements have been made to SMART Vaccines 1.1 to improve the user’s experience. These include a new capability to perform vaccine candidate sensitivity analysis, a new reporting function, expanded population data for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and simplified data input interfaces. These enhancements were based on structured feedback from three user groups and other stakeholder input. Details of these updates to the corresponding sections of the software are outlined below.
Specify
Population, disease, and vaccine candidate information is collected in separate views within the Specify portion of the software. Each of these views includes pre-loaded data to orient users. However, disease and vaccine data may be entered and saved to evaluate user-defined scenarios. The updates to these views include
Population: New populations have been added to supplement the previously available U.S. and South Africa populations. The new populations include populations of OECD member countries and of India, South Africa and New York State. A comprehensive list of the populations available is provided in Table 2-1. An interactive map based on World Health Organiza-
tion (WHO) regions has been added to guide population selection. Finally, the Health Utilities Index (HUI2) has been omitted from the population data because it has been shown to have negligible effects on health and economic outcomes and because it is not available for many populations.
Disease: Disease data input has been simplified to improve ease of use. The original requirements to itemize the costs of health care (inpatient, outpatient, medications) for the disease outcomes of morbidity and impairment have been collapsed to a single annual cost. Similarly, only a single cost of health care associated with death from disease is required.
Vaccine: The view has been re-organized and now offers a drop-down menu to enter one-time costs.
Evaluate
The evaluation portion of the software guides users through the process of attribute selection, weighting, and assessment in separate views. This culminates in SMART Score calculations that rank vaccine candidates based on the users’ customized perspectives. Updates to this section include
Attributes: None.
Weights: None.
Priorities: SMART Scores are no longer bounded on a scale between 0 and 100. The health and economic values for vaccine candidates that fall beyond the “least” and “most” favorable bounds are extrapolated based on the predefined scale. For example, U.S. vaccine candidates averting 15,000 premature deaths (with case the least favorable bound being 0 and the most favorable bound being 10,000) would receive a value of 150. Vaccines with net direct costs of $2.2 billion (the least favorable bound is $2 billion and the most favorable is $0) would receive a value of –10. Thus, aggregate SMART Scores may be negative and may exceed 100. The SMART Score axes are now dynamic to accommodate changing scales. In addition, SMART Scores with negative component values are hashed diagonally with a notification.
Analysis
The Analysis section allows users to perform a sensitivity analysis that alters attribute weights and vaccine candidate characteristics and it now also includes a new reporting function. Updates to the Analysis views include
Weights: None.
Vaccine Profile: The new feature allows users to determine the effects of changing vaccine characteristics (the likelihood of licensure, coverage, effectiveness, the length of immunity, doses per person, cost per dose, cost to administer dose, and costs for research and development and for licensing) on SMART Scores interactively. Updated SMART Scores and values are highlighted in orange to make users aware of which vaccine profiles have been altered.
Print: The SMART Score, outputs, and selected inputs are displayed for each vaccine candidate evaluated. A comments field allows the users to label the scenario, and a new reporting function, Print, creates a PDF file of the view to promote transparency.
Updates to SMART Vaccines 1.1 were based on user feedback. In response to the feedback, the number of available populations was increased, data input views were simplified, and new sensitivity analysis and reporting functions were created.
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