The United Kingdom is seeing a substantial rise in incidences of non-communicable disease including asthma and anxiety disorders. Implementing policy to counteract these conditions is crucial, but many policies implemented during the coronavirus and energy crises in the UK have been unable to help those most in need of assistance due to limited evidence.
One approach to evidence the effect of policy on public health is utilising the Complex Systems Modelling methodology. A candidate policy is parameterised as a causal loop diagram that is then emulated using individual-level modelling providing tools for policy makers to generate evidence identifying subgroups and sub-geographies of the population that may have been overlooked allowing for personalised, equitable, and efficient policy.
This thesis has developed the Microsimulation for Interrogation of Social Science Systems (MINOS) dynamic microsimulation model to estimate causal pathways between household income and health. Several policies are implemented to address child and energy poverty in the UK measuring health outcomes using tangible SF-12 scores, Quality Adjusted Life Years, and Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratios. Evidence to increase the Scottish Child Payment policy has been submitted to the Scottish Government suggesting increasing the payment will be cost-effective for mental health. Application of the existing Energy Price Cap Guarantee and novel Great British Insulation scheme policies to address energy poverty showed that while both policies are expensive if insulation was retroactively fitted in $2020$ it would be cost-effective by as early as $2024$.
These findings have strong implications for future government strategy to reduce household energy bills, reach net zero targets and improve mental well-being. Ultimately, the open source and flexible MINOS model framework has shown success estimating public health response to real government policies and could be expanded to further more complex scenarios reducing incidence of non-communicable disease and government costs.
