The use of epidemiological and health economic modelling in shaping policy of HIV prevention and treatment services

The work in this thesis demonstrates how epidemiological and health economic modelling methods can be used to shape policy around HIV prevention and treatment services, with an overarching goal of making programmes more impactful and efficient. This is done by evaluating and optimizing individual HIV interventions across the spectrum of HIV prevention and treatment interventions. The modelling methods used in this thesis allow us to simulate and evaluate a wide variety of different implementation strategies, or combinations of interventions, without the need to perform costly and time-consuming trials, or allow us to conduct research which might have been otherwise implausible to conduct in the real world. As modelling can be conducted relatively quickly, it also enables rapid policy development and implementation, while questions remain pertinent. Most of the work in this thesis has been conducted while directly engaging with the national governments and relevant stakeholders in order to get their valuable input, as well as to disseminate our research results as they were being produced in real time, enabling a live, iterative process to ensure that the work conducted was relevant and answering the right questions. In conclusion, epidemiological and health economic modelling is a useful tool to evaluate planned implementation and counter it with alternative, impactful and cost-effective strategies to policy-makers in real-time.