ABSTRACT
Reeves and Coile describe the purpose of forecasting as ‘to clarify and quantify the conditions of uncertainty under which all decisions about the future must be made’. This chapter provides an overview of how forecasting is used in health planning, including a range of forecasting approaches and new techniques in computer modelling. The use of qualitative techniques will also be reviewed, along with the rise of scenario planning. Planning and forecasting are usually iterative processes, whereby various assumptions and predictions are tested, adjusted and tested again. Time series forecasting is deterministic in the sense that the future is extrapolated from the past without reference to policy intervention. There are a number of types of time series models, with the simplest being linear extrapolation (that is, the variable to be forecast is plotted against time and a curve is fitted). The effectiveness of participatory forecasting depends, in part, on the techniques used to generate scenarios and bring about consensus.
