PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 97 : Toxicology and Disease: Modeling; Dynamics
Wednesday, August 10, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 518 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Appropriate Models for the Management of Infectious Diseases.
Rohani, Pejman*,1, Wearing, Helen1, Keeling, Matt2, 1 Institute of Ecology, Athens, GA, USA2 Department of Biological Sciences, Coventry, UK
ABSTRACT- Mathematical models have become invaluable management tools for epidemiologists, both shedding light on the mechanisms underlying observed dynamics as well as making quantitative predictions on the effectiveness of different control measures. Here, we explain how substantial biases are introduced by two important, yet largely ignored, assumptions at the core of the vast majority of such models. Specifically, we use analytical methods applied to the familiar SIR family of models to show that (i) ignoring the incubation period or (ii) making the common assumption of exponentially distributed incubation and infectious periods (when including the incubation period) always results in under-estimating the basic reproductive ratio of an infection from outbreak data. We proceed to illustrate these points by fitting epidemic models to data from an influenza outbreak. Finally, we document how such unrealistic a priori assumptions concerning model structure give rise to systematically over-optimistic predictions on the outcome of potential management options.
Key words: Models, Epidemiology, Population Dynamics, Outbreak Data