Scenario Simple Methods

Use the methods in this section for simple manipulation of scenario variables like updating them to a new value, updating them by a percentage etc.

There are 3 types of simple methods:

1. Attribution
2. Relative
3. Absolute

We will consider scenarios involving individuals who do not meet the "Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines", seeing how each of the above methods changes an individuals's physical activity. The guidelines state that an adult should do 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity in a day which roughly translates to a minimum of 3 "metabolic equivalent of task" (METs) a day. We'll the use the name "PhysicalActivity_cont" to represent the variable for the number of METs completed in a day.

We will be running each scenario through the following 2 individuals:

1. One who meets the guidelines (PhysicalActivity_cont >= 3)
2. One who does not meet the guidelines (PhysicalActivity_cont < 3) And see how their profile changes with each method

Attribution

Use this method when the scenario variable needs to be updated to a new value. Consider the scenario object below:

{
    "variableName": "PhysicalActivity_cont", // This is the variable we want to change
    "method": "attribution", // The method type
    "targetPop": [null, 3], // Only run the scenario on individuals who do not meet the guidelines
    "scenarioValue": 3 // What the value of the variable should be i.e. bring them up to the recommended level
}

The aim of the above object is to bring people who do not meet the guidelines up to the recommended level i.e. 3 METs.

Looking at our 2 example individuals:

1. With a targetPop field value of [null, 3], this individual would not meet the inclusion criteria for this scenario, thus his profile would not be changed by it
2. This individual does meet the inclusion criteria and his new value for the PhysicalActivity_cont variable would be 3

Relative

Use this method when the scenario variable needs to be increased or decreased by a percentage value. Consider the scenario object below:

{
    "variableName": "PhysicalActivity_cont", // This is the variable we want to change
    "method": "relative", // The method type
    "targetPop": [null, 3], // Only run the scenario on individuals who do not meet the guidelines
    "scenarioValue": 10 // Increase the variable's value by 10%
}

The aim of this object is to increase the physical activity value for individuals by 10%, but only if they do not meet the guidelines defined in the targetPop field.

Looking at our 2 individuals once again, nothing would happen to individual 1. However for individual 2, the way the scenario is applied would change due to our new relative method. Now rather than the PhysicalActivity_cont variable being set to 3, it would increase by 10%. For eg., if the current value was 1.5 METs, after going through the scenario it would be 1.65 METs.

Absolute

Similar to the relative method, an absolute method changes the scenario variable by increasing or decreasing it by the value provided in the scenarioVariable field. Take a look at the scenario object below:

{
    "variableName": "PhysicalActivity_cont", // This is the variable we want to change
    "method": "absolute", // The method type
    "targetPop": [null, 3], // Only run the scenario on individuals who do not meet the guidelines
    "scenarioValue": 10 // Increase the variable's value by 10 METs
}

Here we want to increase the number of METs by 10 if the individual does not meet the Canadian guidelines.

Once again for our 2 individuals, this scenario would only affect individual 2 by increasing their METs value by 10. Thus if they had a value of 5 METs, it would be 15 after the scenario.