For a study, researchers sought to identify locations along the condition course when actions or inactivity impact downstream burdens of non-cancerous genitourinary conditions (NCGUC), and a conceptual model was proposed.
An interdisciplinary meeting was called by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to discuss the burdens of NCGUCs in detail. The writers then met once a month to conceptualize the model.
A condition course’s critical time points were referred to as inflection points (IP). The suggested Inflection Point Model (IPM) offers a platform to identify the downstream aggregate burden of an NCGUC across multiple socio-ecological levels at a single time point, which may be added across the condition course to measure cumulative burden. It also aided in conceptualizing burden/benefit trade-offs in any related decision. Two personas showed how this approach might be used to understand the effects of two typical NCGUCs better.
The IPM may be used in various situations, such as narrowly investigating the burden of a single NCGUC at a single IP or generally covering several conditions, IPs, or social ecology domains or levels. In order to assess the aggregate and cumulative burden, the IPM may need to integrate population data on the prevalence of NCGUCs, related behaviors, and outcome patterns with the appropriate mathematical models. The IPM pushes participants to go beyond the individual and consider deeper layers of social ecology. Utilizing the IPM will likely reveal data gaps and future areas of study that need to be pursued to define and solve the burden of NCGUCs.
Reference: goldjournal.net/article/S0090-4295(21)00739-1/fulltext
