PREVENTIVE MEDICINE POLICIES,
Abstract
In recent years much research has been completed in both the design and implementation of policies for stochastically failing equipment. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how this research on physical capital can be extended to human capital. The scheduling methodology that was developed for equipment can be used to evaluate preventive dental and medical policies for human beings. Since diagnosis and treatment of diseases require different modeling than the maintenance of physical equipment, many of the standard equipment models were modified so as to be applicable to human beings. Although several different criteria are investigated, the basic problem of evaluating human life is circumvented by treating only a trivial health problem, namely, the scheduling of dental examinations. This dental problem is trivial in the sense that longevity is not usually significantly affected by the scheduling policy. The extension of the simple dental policy to cancer detection is outlined, but longevity implications are not explored.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0633596
Entities
People
- J. J. Mccall
Organizations
- RAND Corporation