Modelling the global spread of diseases: A review of current practice and capability

Publication date: Available online 18 May 2018Source: EpidemicsAuthor(s): Caroline E. Walters, Margaux M.I. Meslé, Ian M. HallAbstractMathematical models can aid in the understanding of the risks associated with the global spread of infectious diseases. To assess the current state of mathematical models for the global spread of infectious diseases, we reviewed the literature highlighting common approaches and good practice, and identifying research gaps. We followed a scoping study method and extracted information from 78 records on: modelling approaches; input data (epidemiological, population, and travel) for model parameterization; model validation data.We found that most epidemiological data come from published journal articles, population data come from a wide range of sources, and travel data mainly come from statistics or surveys, or commercial datasets. The use of commercial datasets may benefit the modeller, however makes critical appraisal of their model by other researchers more difficult. We found a minority of records (26) validated their model. We posit that this may be a result of pandemics, or far-reaching epidemics, being relatively rare events compared with other modelled physical phenomena (e.g. climate change). The sparsity of such events, and changes in outbreak recording, may make identifying suitable validation data difficult.We appreciate the challenge of modelling emerging infections given the lack of data for both model parameterisation and validati...

Source: Epidemics - July 5, 2018 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research