Lau, Max SY; Gibson, Gavin J; Adrakey, Hola; McClelland, Amanda; Riley, Steven; Zelner, Jon; Streftaris, George; Funk, Sebastian; Metcalf, Jessica; Dalziel, Benjamin D; +1 more... Grenfell, Bryan T; (2017) A mechanistic spatio-temporal framework for modelling individual-to-individual transmission-With an application to the 2014-2015 West Africa Ebola outbreak. PLoS computational biology, 13 (10). e1005798-. ISSN 1553-734X DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005798
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Abstract
In recent years there has been growing availability of individual-level spatio-temporal disease data, particularly due to the use of modern communicating devices with GPS tracking functionality. These detailed data have been proven useful for inferring disease transmission to a more refined level than previously. However, there remains a lack of statistically sound frameworks to model the underlying transmission dynamic in a mechanistic manner. Such a development is particularly crucial for enabling a general epidemic predictive framework at the individual level. In this paper we propose a new statistical framework for mechanistically modelling individual-to-individual disease transmission in a landscape with heterogeneous population density. Our methodology is first tested using simulated datasets, validating our inferential machinery. The methodology is subsequently applied to data that describes a regional Ebola outbreak in Western Africa (2014-2015). Our results show that the methods are able to obtain estimates of key epidemiological parameters that are broadly consistent with the literature, while revealing a significantly shorter distance of transmission. More importantly, in contrast to existing approaches, we are able to perform a more general model prediction that takes into account the susceptible population. Finally, our results show that, given reasonable scenarios, the framework can be an effective surrogate for susceptible-explicit individual models which are often computationally challenging.
Item Type | Article |
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Faculty and Department | Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Dynamics (2023-) |
PubMed ID | 29084216 |
ISI | 414148800049 |
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Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0
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