Starting date: November 2021
Work Programme
The overall goal of the Public Health Decision Science Team (PHDS) is to inform public health decision-making at a global and local level on the basis on predictive models combining high-quality empirical data and advanced algorithms. This initiative focuses on preventable cancers in both high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries; working concomitantly in both settings will accelerate knowledge and technology transfer from high-resource to low-resource settings.
PHDS has developed a modelling platform, called METHIS, accessible upon request, dedicated to Health Technology and Economic Assessment for preventable cancers. The platform encompasses a range of integrated models of increasing complexity and flexibility. This approach makes it possible to adapt public health projections of the expected impact of primary and secondary prevention (e.g. vaccination and screening) on the occurrence of preventable cancers to context-specific needs and locally available data sets. PHDS is using the METHIS platform to inform tailored recommendations for a wide range of settings, primarily, but not restricted to, cervical cancer prevention. PHDS, in collaboration with local stakeholders (e.g. ministries of health, universities, research institutes), is using the METHIS modelling platform to achieve real-world impacts. In Bhutan, evaluating the impact of the local human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme on cervical cancer prevention, combined with the local screening flagship programme, has demonstrated the acceleration of the cervical cancer elimination goals. In Brazil, expert advice based on METHIS projections assisted the decision to transition to a single-dose HPV vaccination schedule. Currently, the platform is also being used to explore the potential benefits of expanding the valency of existing HPV vaccines, to maximize the impact of vaccination by accounting for geographical differences in distribution of HPV types in cervical cancers (e.g. HPV35), and to assess the impact of vaccination in women living with HIV. In the European Union, using the METHIS modelling platform supported the development of the updated European guidelines for cervical cancer screening, about vaccinated populations. Other collaborations include those in China, Indonesia, India, and Zimbabwe.
PHDS participates in various past and ongoing European consortia, such as Health-economic modelling of prevention strategies for HPV-related diseases in European countries (PREHDICT), Comparing health services interventions for the prevention of HPV-related cancer (CoheaHR), RICC, the European Commission Initiative on Cervical Cancer (EC-CvC), and HPV-FASTER-IMPLEMENT, which investigates the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost–effectiveness of different risk-based cervical cancer strategies of offering primary HPV screening. In EC-CVC, PHDS played a key role in supporting guideline development for HPV screening in HPV-vaccinated birth cohorts across Europe, transforming complex data into clear, decision-oriented insights and contributing to evidence appraisal and recommendation formulation within the GRADE framework. HPV-FASTER-IMPLEMENT investigates offering concomitant HPV vaccination and HPV-based screening to vulnerable populations, including but not limited to individuals such as migrants, people who are homeless, people who use drugs, transgender males, female sex workers, and women living with HIV. Cervical cancer remains a public health challenge, particularly for vulnerable populations who have limited access to health-care services. Although HPV vaccination and screening programmes have reduced mortality rates, these efforts have plateaued, exacerbating inequalities within the European health-care system.
Through stakeholder engagement, mathematical modelling (using the METHIS platform), and implementation research, PHDS produces valuable evidence to support policy recommendations and to strengthen national prevention programmes with interventions tailored to vulnerable populations. A related project on cancer risk in migrant populations in Europe, to which PHDS contributes, is the Cancer RADAR project. Cancer RADAR provides a framework for the systematic and comparable collection of cancer data by migration background, collaboratively, across Europe. Through federated analysis methods, Cancer RADAR is expected to provide updated estimates of the risk of preventable cancers in migrant populations in Europe.
PHDS has established CHRONOS, the Center of Excellence to monitor HPV vaccination impact, grounded in the WHO framework for monitoring cervical cancer elimination and focusing on, but not limited to, low- and middle-income countries. CHRONOS aims to: (1) share validated and standardized procedures for cross-sectional surveys of HPV prevalence for monitoring HPV vaccination impact; (2) develop effective mechanisms for transferring knowledge to and building capacity in countries joining the CHRONOS network; (3) evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of the training materials; and (4) facilitate programme expansion and promote global access. Ultimately, the resulting evidence will support public health authorities in monitoring the impact of HPV vaccination and in designing policies, by combining CHRONOS data with METHIS modelling technologies, to accelerate cervical cancer elimination through sustainable actions.
The experience acquired in the field of cervical cancer control is being expanded to assess the impact of population-based control measures against other infection-related or preventable cancer types, such as gastric cancer and breast cancer.
Team Composition
Team Leader: Dr Iacopo Baussano, Early Detection, Prevention, and Infections Branch (EPR), IARC
Email: BaussanoI@iarc.who.int
Team members:
Dr Catharina J. Alberts (Visiting Scientist, EPR)
Dr Partha Basu (Branch Head, EPR)
Dr Freddie Bray (Branch Head, CSU)
Dr Laura Downham (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Dr Sarra Ezzemni (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Ms Philippine Gason (Project Assistant, EPR)
Mr Damien Georges (Senior Research Assistant, Data Management/Analysis, EPR)
Dr Andrea Gini (Scientist, EPR)
Dr Elham Gohbadpour (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Dr Alina Macacu (Senior Research Assistant, Data Management/Analysis, EPR)
Dr Irene Man (Scientist, EPR)
Mr Chenghao Pan (Doctoral Student, EPR)
Dr Jin Young Park (Scientist, EPR)
Dr Mary Luz Rol (Scientist, EPR)
Ms Vanessa Tenet (Senior Research Assistant, Data Management/Analysis, EPR)
Dr Rachel Wittenauer (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Dr Meiwen Yuan (Postdoctoral Fellow, EPR)
Former team members:
Dr Indira Adhikari (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Mr Maxime Bonjour (Doctoral Student, EPR)
Mr Andrei Cividjian (Master’s Student, EPR)
Dr Abrham Wondimu Dagne (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Mr Mattis Eynard (Master’s Student, EPR)
Dr Ahmad Fuady (Postdoctoral Scientist, EPR)
Key networks: European Commission Initiative on Cervical Cancer (EC-CvC), HPV Prevention and Control Board, Coalition to Strengthen the HPV Immunization Community (CHIC) Council, HPV-FASTER-IMPLEMENT EU Consortium, Joint Action on Strategies for Health Interventions to Eliminate Infection-related Cancers (SHIELD)
Key funding: Gates Foundation (GF), World Health Organization (WHO), European Commission, EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Key publications
- Arroyo Mühr LS, Gini A, Yilmaz E, Hassan SS, Lagheden C, Hultin E, et al. (2024). Concomitant human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and screening for elimination of HPV and cervical cancer. Nat Commun. 15(1):3679. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47909-x PMID:38693149
- Park JY, Georges D, Alberts CJ, Bray F, Clifford G, Baussano I (2025). Global lifetime estimates of expected and preventable gastric cancers across 185 countries. Nat Med. 31(9):3020–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03793-6 PMID:40624406
- de Carvalho TM, Man I, Georges D, Saraswati LR, Bhandari P, Kataria I, et al. (2023). Health and economic effects of introducing single-dose or two-dose human papillomavirus vaccination in India. BMJ Glob Health. 8(11):e012580. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-012580 PMID:37931940
- Fuady A, Setiawan D, Man I, de Kok IMCM, Baussano I (2024). Toward a framework to assess the financial and economic burden of cervical cancer in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. JCO Glob Oncol. 10(10):e2400066. https://doi.org/10.1200/GO.24.00066 PMID:39116362
- Fuady A, Kasempa C, Lucas E, Nyambe N, Rao DW, Tenet V, et al. (2025). Economic evaluation of thermal ablation compared to cryotherapy and loop diathermy in a screen-and-treat approach to cervical cancer, Zambia. Bull World Health Organ. 103(9):530–40. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.24.292792 PMID:40900929
- Man I, Georges D, Basu P, Baussano I (2024). Leveraging single-dose human papillomavirus vaccination dose-efficiency to attain cervical cancer elimination in resource-constrained settings. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 2024(67):400–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/jncimonographs/lgae035 PMID:39529528
- Baussano I, Tenet V, Baghdasarova K, Harutyunyan Z, Vorsters A, Heideman D, et al. (2025). HPV burden in Armenia among unvaccinated women: a series of cross-sectional population-based prevalence surveys. Vaccine. 62:127405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.127405 PMID:40627870
- Man I, Georges D, Sankaranarayanan R, Basu P, Baussano I (2023). Building resilient cervical cancer prevention through gender-neutral HPV vaccination. Elife. 12:e85735. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85735 PMID:37486822
- Sayinzoga F, Tenet V, Heideman DAM, Sibomana H, Umulisa MC, Franceschi S, et al. (2023). Human papillomavirus vaccine effect against human papillomavirus infection in Rwanda: evidence from repeated cross-sectional cervical-cell-based surveys. Lancet Glob Health. 11(7):e1096–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00193-6 PMID:37207683
- Wei F, Georges D, Man I, Baussano I, Clifford GM (2024). Causal attribution of human papillomavirus genotypes to invasive cervical cancer worldwide: a systematic analysis of the global literature. Lancet. 404(10451):435–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01097-3 PMID:39097395