OR Applications in Disease Screening

This chapter presents an overview of disease screening problems and operations research applications on different aspects of the problem. We first discuss operations research applications in evaluation and optimization of screening policies. Cost-effectiveness analysis and personalized medical decision making approaches for screening problems are be discussed here. The methodologies discussed include microsimulation models, compartmental models, general stochastic models and Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes. Then, organization of screening services for reaching out to the population and improving the effectiveness of screening, is discussed. Main topics included are location and resource allocation problems. We conclude with a brief discussion of future research directions.