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This book provides a systematic treatment of the mathematical underpinnings of work in the theory of outbreak dynamics and their control, covering balanced perspectives between theory and practice including new material on contemporary topics in the field of infectious disease modelling. Specifically, it presents a unified mathematical framework linked to the distribution theory of non-negative random variables; the many examples used in the text, are introduced and discussed in light of theoretical perspectives. The book is organized into 9 chapters: The first motivates the presentation of the material on subsequent chapters; Chapter 2-3 provides a review of basic concepts of probability and statistical models for the distributions of continuous lifetime data and the distributions of random counts and counting processes, which are linked to phenomenological models. Chapters 4 focuses on dynamic behaviors of a disease outbreak during the initial phase while Chapters 5-6 broadly cover compartment models to investigate the consequences of epidemics as the outbreak moves beyond the initial phase. Chapter 7 provides a transition between mostly theoretical topics in earlier chapters and Chapters 8 and 9 where the focus is on the data generating processes and statistical issues of fitting models to data as well as specific mathematical epidemic modeling applications, respectively. This book is aimed at a wide audience ranging from graduate students to established scientists from quantitatively-oriented fields of epidemiology, mathematics and statistics. The numerous examples and illustrations make understanding of the mathematics of disease transmission and control accessible. Furthermore, the examples and exercises, make the book suitable for motivated students in applied mathematics, either through a lecture course, or through self-study. This text could be used in graduate schools or special summer schools covering research problems in mathematical biology.

The contributions by epidemic modeling experts describe how mathematical models and statistical forecasting are created to capture the most important aspects of an emerging epidemic.Readers will discover a broad range of approaches to address questions, such asCan we control Ebola via ring vaccination strategies?How quickly should we detect Ebola cases to ensure epidemic control? What is the likelihood that an Ebola epidemic in West Africa leads to secondary outbreaks in other parts of the world? When does it matter to incorporate the role of disease-induced mortality on epidemic models? What is the role of behavior changes on Ebola dynamics? How can we better understand the control of cholera or Ebola using optimal control theory?How should a population be structured in order to mimic the transmission dynamics of diseases such as chlamydia, Ebola, or cholera?How can weobjectively determine the end of an epidemic?How can we use metapopulation models to understand the role of movement restrictions and migration patterns on the spread of infectious diseases?How can we capture the impact of household transmission using compartmental epidemic models?How could behavior-dependent vaccination affect the dynamical outcomes of epidemic models? The derivation and analysis of the mathematical models addressing these questions provides a wide-ranging overview of the new approaches being created to better forecast and mitigate emerging epidemics. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of mathematical epidemiology, as well as public health workers.

Mathematical and Statistical Estimation Approaches in Epidemiology compiles t- oretical and practical contributions of experts in the analysis of infectious disease epidemics in a single volume. Recent collections have focused in the analyses and simulation of deterministic and stochastic models whose aim is to identify and rank epidemiological and social mechanisms responsible for disease transmission. The contributions in this volume focus on the connections between models and disease data with emphasis on the application of mathematical and statistical approaches that quantify model and data uncertainty. The book is aimed at public health experts, applied mathematicians and sci- tists in the life and social sciences, particularly graduate or advanced undergraduate students, who are interested not only in building and connecting models to data but also in applying and developing methods that quantify uncertainty in the context of infectious diseases. Chowell and Brauer open this volume with an overview of the classical disease transmission models of Kermack-McKendrick including extensions that account for increased levels of epidemiological heterogeneity. Their theoretical tour is followed by the introduction of a simple methodology for the estimation of, the basic reproduction number,R. The use of this methodology 0 is illustrated, using regional data for 1918–1919 and 1968 in uenza pandemics.