Raffaele Vardavas

Mathematician; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Santa Monica Office

Education

M.Sci. and Ph.D. in physics, Imperial College London

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

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Overview

Raffaele Vardavas is a senior-level mathematician at the RAND Corporation and a Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty member. His expertise is primarily in constructing and analyzing epidemic models for spreading infectious disease using both deterministic and stochastic methods and using both population-level and agent-based models. He is especially interested in socioeconomic dynamical systems involving a contagion process, social networks, criticality, and entities with adaptable behavior. He has been PI on NSF-funded grants, NIH-funded R21, and R01 grants, and has served on review panels for influenza and COVID-19 related R01 and center grant proposals for NIAID. He has been part of a technical advisory group on integrated Epidemiological and Economic models of COVID-19 for the WHO. Vardavas holds a Ph.D. and M.Sci. in Physics from Imperial College London.

Research Focus

Recent Projects

Modeling the Coupled Dynamics of Influenza Transmission and Vaccination
Agent-Based Model of the Role of Perceptions in Income Tax Evasion
International Alcohol Policy Model
Microsimulation of Obesity Policies
Market Creation as a Policy Tool for Transformational Change

Languages

Italian

Commentary

Epidemiology

Will the United States Declare Freedom from COVID-19 Too Soon?
RAND analyzed what could happen with COVID-19 deaths in the United States if restrictions all go away on July 4. Fully reopening the economy before Biden's vaccination target was met doubled the average number of COVID-19 deaths between Independence Day and the end of the year.
May 21, 2021
The RAND Blog
Affordable Care Act

COVID-19 Could Become a Widespread Preexisting Condition in a Post-ACA World
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is far from perfect, but its protections are particularly relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the ACA is struck down, then protections for preexisting conditions will go with it. Policymakers should consider the potential implications for millions of COVID-19 survivors.
Nov 4, 2020
The Hill
Data Analysis

Modeling the Future of COVID-19: Q&A with RAND Experts
The phrase “flatten the curve” familiarized Americans with epidemiological models used to estimate virus transmission, cases, and potential deaths from COVID-19. But new models are needed as the country enters a different stage of the crisis.
May 26, 2020
Decisionmaking

Relaxing COVID-19 Restrictions Presents Stark Health and Economic Choices
RAND's new COVID-19 interventions impact tool uses epidemiological and economic models and continually refreshed data to estimate what could happen as restrictions are eased. The tool won't make the choices confronting state leaders less painful. But it can provide clear, evidence-based estimates of the health and economic trade-offs.
May 18, 2020
The RAND Blog
Mortality

Estimates of COVID-19's Fatality Rate Might Change. And Then Change Again.
With infections of the new coronavirus confirmed in countries around the world, people are following the daily tally of COVID-19 cases, wondering exactly how lethal this new disease is. The truth is, it's hard to know.
Mar 11, 2020
The RAND Blog
Let's (Not) Play Games with Dodd-Frank
Dodd-Frank, the 2010 financial reform law, is now itself the target of reform. Those involved with the overhaul could draw inspiration from an unlikely source: video games. A simulation game could help predict the effects of changes to regulations—and avoid high-stakes missteps.
May 4, 2017
The Hill

Publications

Journal Article
Optimal Non-Pharmaceutical Pandemic Response Strategies Depend Critically on Time Horizons and Costs
This paper performs a large-scale optimization exercise to find optimal non-pharmaceutical pandemic response strategies.
Feb 14, 2023
Journal Article
Association of COVID-19 Vaccination With Influenza Vaccine History and Changes in Influenza Vaccination
Using the RAND American Life Panel (ALP), we examine relationships among COVID and influenza vaccination amongst those who historically never, sometimes, or always vaccinate for influenza.
Nov 16, 2022
Research Brief
Increasing Subsidies and Expanding Health Insurance Options in Connecticut: Findings Without the Build Back Better Act
The authors estimated the impacts of policy options to increase the affordability of insurance in Connecticut with the assumption that subsidy enhancements enacted under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 would not continue past 2022.
Mar 31, 2022
Report
Increasing Subsidies and Expanding Health Insurance Options in Connecticut
The authors estimated the impacts of policy options to increase the affordability of insurance in Connecticut. They calculated enrollment, premiums, and state spending and considered whether the results differed by race, ethnicity, or income group.
Mar 31, 2022
Journal Article
Modelling the Impact of Social Distancing and Targeted Vaccination on the Spread of COVID-19 Through a Real City-Scale Contact Network
We use mobile device data to construct empirical interpersonal physical contact networks in the city of Portland, Oregon, both before and after social distancing measures were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dec 15, 2021
Report
Temporary Safety-Net Policies and Pandemic-Related Insurance Loss in New York State
Researchers assess the importance of temporary provisions relative to long-standing policies in stabilizing health insurance enrollment in New York state despite heavy job loss during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Nov 12, 2021
Journal Article
Reopening California: Seeking Robust, Non-Dominated COVID-19 Exit Strategies
This paper uses simulation models and the Robust Decision Making (RDM) approach to stress-test California's reopening strategy and other alternatives over a wide range of futures.
Nov 5, 2021
Journal Article
Could Periodic Nonpharmaceutical Intervention Strategies Produce Better COVID-19 Health and Economic Outcomes?
We developed a COVID-19 transmission model to compare the effects of nonpharmaceutical public health interventions (NPIs). We find that the periodic switch between low and high NPI levels could have produced similar health outcomes as static strategies but better social welfare outcomes.
Oct 20, 2021
Journal Article
Modeling Infectious Behaviors: The Need to Account for Behavioral Adaptation in COVID-19 Models
In this essay we discuss the need for new types of simulation models of COVID-19 that couple transmission dynamics with adaptive behaviors.
Oct 20, 2021
Report
Reopening Under Uncertainty: Stress-Testing California's COVID-19 Exit Strategy
Researchers used the Robust Decision Making approach to stress-test California's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This Perspective presents lessons learned from these experiments and outlines four characteristics of the best reopening strategies.
May 10, 2021
Draft
Modeling COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions: Exploring periodic NPI Strategies
Develops a COVID-19 transmission model used as part of RAND's web-based COVID-19 decision support tool that compares the effects of nonpharmaceutical public health interventions on health and economic outcomes.
Apr 22, 2021
Journal Article
Modeling Agent Behaviors for Policy Analysis Via Reinforcement Learning
This paper examines the value of reinforcement learning models as adaptive, high-performing, and behaviorally-valid models of agent decision-making in Agent-based Models.
Mar 9, 2021
Research Brief
10Plan, How Would It Affect Health Care Spending by Consumers and the Federal Government
The 10Plan is a self-pay plan for individuals currently uninsured or covered by a private nongroup health insurance plan. The authors built a microsimulation model to estimate health care spending under both the status quo and the 10Plan.
Feb 25, 2021
Report
Protecting the Most Vulnerable by Vaccinating the Most Active
In this Perspective, the authors used a network model to illustrate five different vaccination strategies for coronavirus disease 2019, showing that vaccinating the most-active people might be the best way to protect the vulnerable in the pandemic.
Feb 15, 2021
Report
Analysis of the 10Plan: A Self-Pay System Designed to Minimize the Burden of Health Care Costs
The 10Plan is a self-pay plan for individuals currently uninsured or covered by a private nongroup health insurance plan. The authors built a microsimulation model to estimate health care spending under both the status quo and the 10Plan.
Jan 25, 2021
Report
Logistics Analysis of Puerto Rico: Will the Seaborne Supply Chain of Puerto Rico Support Hurricane Recovery Projects?
Puerto Rico's seaborne logistics capacity is assessed in the context of recovery efforts following the Hurricane Maria. Key constraints are identified along with actions to mitigate potential bottlenecks.
Sep 30, 2020
Draft
Deep Generative Modeling in Network Science with Applications to Public Policy Research
Explores deep generative modeling in network science towards informing key public policy questions.
Sep 30, 2020
Tool
The Health and Economic Impacts of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions to Address COVID-19: A Decision Support Tool for State and Local Policymakers
There is an urgent need for an assessment of public health interventions to address coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and determine when to relax them. This document describes the COVID-19 Decision Support Tool, which is designed to fill that need.
May 4, 2020
Report
Medicare for 50-to-64-Year-Olds: Assessing the Effects of Allowing Older Adults to Buy Into the Medicare Program
In this report, the authors analyze how allowing adults ages 50 and older to buy into the Medicare program could affect health insurance coverage, individual market premiums, and federal health care spending.
Nov 18, 2019
Draft
RAND's Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Science Agent-Based Model of Income Tax Evasion: Technical Report
Explores an agent-based computational simulation model of individual income tax evasion tools to understand how taxpayers change their compliance behavior and what government policies could help mitigate the problem of tax evasion.
Sep 19, 2019
Journal Article
Panel Discussion: Moving Social-Behavioral Modeling Forward
This chapter describes panel discussion and debate relating to various multi-scale phenomena in social science, including emergence.
Jun 11, 2019
Report
Increasing Cost-Effective Readiness for the U.S. Air Force by Reducing Supply Chain Variance: Technical Analysis of Flying Hour Program Variance
Seeking to reduce the $4 billion that it spends annually on spare parts, the Air Force asked RAND researchers to identify the causes and gauge the effects of flying hour variance (the difference between predicted and actual numbers of flying hours).
Apr 10, 2018
Report
Preventing, Identifying, and Treating Prescription Drug Misuse Among Active-Duty Service Members
This report presents the framework of an analytic tool that can help the military predict future trends in PDM based on current demographics of active-duty service members and rates of injury and prescribing of prescription drugs.
Jan 4, 2017
Journal Article
A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Preexposure Prophylaxis for the Prevention of HIV Among Los Angeles County Men Who Have Sex with Men
Some strategies for treating high-risk individuals before HIV infection can be cost effective while helping to reduce incidence of the disease.
Dec 1, 2016
Report
Improving Decision Support for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control: Aligning Models and Other Tools with Policymakers' Needs
This report provides an overview of decision-support tools, including models and nonmodeling approaches, for policymakers and modelers and provides recommendations for using the tools to inform real-world infectious disease-related policy questions.
Jul 12, 2016
Research Brief
Assessing the Department of Defense's Approach to Reducing Mental Health Stigma
This brief assesses the military's approach to reducing stigma for mental health disorders.
Jan 18, 2016
Journal Article
The Effect of Near-Term Policy Choices on Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Transformation Pathways
This paper introduces a new agent-based, game theoretic model designed to compare how near-term choices regarding alternative policy architectures influence long-term emission reduction trajectories.
Nov 23, 2015
Journal Article
Benefits of PrEP as an Adjunctive Method of HIV Prevention During Attempted Conception Between HIV-uninfected Women and HIV-infected Male Partners
Data on effectiveness of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–uninfected women attempting conception with HIV-infected male partners are limited to observational studies.
Jul 8, 2015
Report
Estimating the economic costs of antimicrobial resistance: Model and Results
The independent Review on AMR led by the economist Jim O'Neill commissioned RAND Europe to conduct a study estimating the global costs of antimicrobial resistance until 2050 in the absence of any progress in tackling the challenge.
Dec 10, 2014
Report
Mental Health Stigma in the Military
This report assesses the U.S. military's approach to reducing stigma for mental health disorders and their treatment, how well it is working, and how it might be improved. It presents priorities for getting service members the treatment they need.
Sep 30, 2014
Report
An Evolutionary Model of Industry Transformation and the Political Sustainability of Emission Control Policies
To compare the long-term sustainability of alternative carbon emission reduction policies, an agent-based simulation explores the co-evolution of an industry sector, its technology base, and political coalitions that influence government policy.
Sep 6, 2013
Journal Article
Conscious Consideration of Herd Immunity in Influenza Vaccination Decisions
Influenza vaccination decisions may be influenced by perceived risk reduction related to herd immunity.
Jul 1, 2013
Journal Article
Test-and-treat in Los Angeles: A Mathematical Model of the Effects of Test-And-Treat for the Population of Men Who Have Sex with Men in Los Angeles County
There is evidence to suggest that antiretroviral therapy (ART) and testing for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reduce the probability of transmission of HIV.
Jun 1, 2013
Journal Article
Modeling Employer Self-Insurance Decisions After the Affordable Care Act
Self-insurance rates will increase among small firms only under the hypothetical situation that generous stop-loss policies are available to them after implementation of the ACA. Even if many small firms choose to self insure under this situation, it will not increase the premiums charged in the insurance exchanges by more than a few tenths of a percent.
2013
Journal Article
Modeling Influenza Vaccination Behavior Via Inductive Reasoning Games
The authors show that individual immunization choices can cause severe influenza epidemics and illustrate the actions that might be undertaken to prevent them.
2013
Journal Article
Small Firms' Actions in Two Areas, and Exchange Premium and Enrollment Impact
An analysis of two rules that allow small businesses to avoid participating in health reform concludes they will have only a minor impact because relatively few businesses are likely to take advantage of the options.
2012
Report
Employer Self-Insurance Decisions and the Implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as Modified by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (ACA)
Implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (as Modified by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act) for small firms' decisions to offer self-insured health plans and consequences of self-insurance for enrollees.
May 25, 2011
Journal Article
A Universal Long-Term Flu Vaccine May Not Prevent Severe Epidemics
Universal vaccines that provide short-term protection are likely to result in small frequent epidemics, whereas universal vaccines that provide long-term protection are likely to result in severe infrequent epidemics.
2010
Draft
Overview of the COMPARE Microsimulation Model
To enhance the assessment of proposals to reform U.S. health policy, RAND researchers created the COMPARE microsimulation model, which develops a synthetic U.S. population and projects how it would respond to a variety of coverage-oriented options.
Dec 30, 2009