Seminar delivered by Dr Caroline Franco
Earlier today, Dr Caroline Franco gave us an excellent talk on her work on infectious disease modelling.
During the emergence of COVID-19, mathematical models became important tools to support health decision making, with the impact of different interventions and control strategies being assessed by these models. A proliferation of compartmental models was observed in the mathematical modelling community, aiming to understand and make predictions regarding the spread of COVID-19. Such an approach has its own advantages and challenges: while compartmental models are suitable to simulate large populations, the underlying well-mixing assumptions might be problematic, for instance, when considering non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) which strongly affect individual behaviour. Furthermore, when using models to simulate such complex dynamical systems, participatory approaches and effective communication are another key challenge to ensure their impact in evidence-based decisions.
In this seminar, Caroline talked to us about some of the models she developed as part of the international pandemic response, the lessons from their use in different settings and next steps towards pandemic preparedness and evidence-based decision making.
The talk is part of the ACHDS seminar series, and is available to watch on our YouTube channel: COVID-19 modelling in context: experiences, lessons and next steps (youtube.com)
If you would like more information please get in touch at achds@abdn.ac.uk