Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission
Details
Informing public health preparedness and response
Speaker: Rob Moss
Abstract:
Did you know that Australia has a plan for protecting our population in response to a pandemic, and that many of the recommendations in that plan are informed by mathematical models?
For almost a century, mathematical modelling has been used to help us understand how infectious diseases spread through populations, to predict their likely impact, and to help inform public health interventions. While the ever-increasing computing resources at our disposal in recent years have enabled the development of highly complex models, we can still obtain useful insights from simple models.
In this talk, I will introduce some of the most common models used in infectious diseases epidemiology, demonstrate how they can be used to estimate the impact of different public health interventions, and show how they can be combined with data in near-real-time in order to generate epidemic forecasts.
Speaker info:
Dr Robert Moss is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at The University of Melbourne.
Rob works at the University of Melbourne with James McCaw and Jodie McVernon.
Rob uses mathematical models of biological systems (from sub-organ to population) to address questions concerning the dynamics of the biological system and how its behaviour can be influenced, whether by regulatory processes or interventions (both direct and indirect).
To date, his research has comprised two distinct themes:
(1) Methods for mitigating the burden of seasonal and pandemic influenza (including targeted antiviral distribution and epidemic forecasting); and
(2) Understanding neurohumoral regulation of renal water and sodium excretion (with repercussions for whole-body homeostasis).
In addition to these research interests, he is actively interested in broader issues related to model-driven science, including the dissemination of models (including source code, parameter sets, analysis scripts, etc), and effective communication of research outputs through the use of visualisations.
Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission