Development and validation of a new population-based simulation model of osteoarthritis in New Zealand.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the construction and preliminary validation of a new population-based microsimulation model developed to analyse the health and economic burden and cost-effectiveness of treatments for knee osteoarthritis (OA) in New Zealand (NZ).

METHOD: We developed the New Zealand Management of Osteoarthritis (NZ-MOA) model, a discrete-time state-transition microsimulation model of the natural history of radiographic knee OA. In this article, we report on the model structure, derivation of input data, validation of baseline model parameters against external data sources, and validation of model outputs by comparison of the predicted population health loss with previous estimates.

RESULTS: The NZ-MOA model simulates both the structural progression of radiographic knee OA and the stochastic development of multiple disease symptoms. Input parameters were sourced from NZ population-based data where possible, and from international sources where NZ-specific data were not available. The predicted distributions of structural OA severity and health utility detriments associated with OA were externally validated against other sources of evidence, and uncertainty resulting from key input parameters was quantified. The resulting lifetime and current population health-loss burden was consistent with estimates of previous studies.

CONCLUSION: The new NZ-MOA model provides reliable estimates of the health loss associated with knee OA in the NZ population. The model structure is suitable for analysis of the effects of a range of potential treatments, and will be used in future work to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of recommended interventions within the NZ healthcare system.