Mathematical Modeling of Tropical Diseases
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| Global IP Fellows Meeting |
Claudia Codeco
Associate Researcher, Scientific Computation Program, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mathematical Modeling of Tropical Diseases
My interest is to develop theoretical models for the dynamics of infectious diseases, specially vector borne and water borne tropical diseases, in order to assess epidemic risk under uncertain scenarios. To be useful for prediction, models must consider many sources of uncertainty that underlie risk estimation, and be capable of associating probability to events. In this talk, I will present some examples of modeling approaches. I end by introducing a probabilistic model for estimating the effect of environmental drivers on ecological systems that show threshold behavior. Ecological systems with strong nonlinearities pose special challenges for modeling. The threshold model assumes two underlying processes and that the system's response is a mixture of these two processes. The mixture proportion is a function of environmental covariates. Two examples of systems with threshold behavior are presented, both related to waterborne infectious diseases and rainfall: leptospirosis and cholera.