Decision Science

Content:

Two sessions of Decision Science were given by Dr. Greene this week. So what is decision science? It is a statistical approach for decision making. In everyday life, there are so many things waiting for us to make decision. Shall I get up at 7:30 or 8:00am? Or is it good to do homework first or attend the yoga class first. In our mind, we have our own process of analysis and evaluation and make a decision finally.


The frameworks for analysis include: establishing the context, laying out the alternatives, predicting the consequences, valuing the outcomes and make a choice. The decision which can max the outcomes is a good one. Based on the frameworks, the decision tree is built up for structure the problem. The way using decision tree to make a choice is “folded back”, in which we start from the right, summarizing each possible combination of choice and chance, and end in the left.

For a basic decision tree, which deals with a single disease, we can find out the decision by computing the expected value. But for the decision which involves risks which you do not know when they would occur, the Markov process will replace the decision tree. The famous Baye’s rule is applied for the probability of the disease present, given the results of the tests. However, the threshold is determined according to the experts’ opinion, so it will influence the sensitivity and specificity hence the decision.

Unfortunately, decision science rarely used for actual clinical decision making while most often for determining health guidelines or policy, but it still can provide decision support.


Posted by  Xiaoxiao