Forecasting for Health Supply Chains

PhD Research Project

Forecasting for Health Supply Chains

Improving demand forecasting for family planning so that contraceptives are available when and where they are needed.

Forecasting Uncertainty Inventory Public health

The Core Challenge

What Was Lost?

In public health, zero recorded demand does not necessarily mean zero need. It can mean that the shelves were empty. When a health facility runs out of stock, the community’s true demand goes unrecorded. This censored or lost demand leads to flawed forecasts, chronic under-stocking, and a cycle of supply failure. My research focuses on breaking this cycle.

Research Outputs

Publications and Code

A Novel Hybrid Approach to Contraceptive Demand Forecasting

International Journal of Production Research

Read paper View code

Estimating Censored Demand in Family Planning Supply Chains

Forecast accuracy, inventory implications, and public-health outcomes · Preprint under review

Paper forthcoming Code forthcoming

Research in Practice

EPSS Forecasting Training

Research is most valuable when it is put into practice. As part of this project, I developed and delivered a two-day workshop for practitioners at the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supply Service, supporting modern forecasting with R and Python.

Training materials Code and labs

Project Team