Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics
The Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics works to improve methods for infectious disease modeling and statistical analysis, quantify disease and intervention impact, engage with policymakers to enhance decision-making, and train the next generation of scientists.
677 Huntington Avenue
Kresge Building, Suite 506
Boston, MA 02115
Week 2: Infectious Disease Models I
This week, we introduce the basic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model framework to describe an epidemic in a susceptible population. We walk through the basic equations, and the parameters that describe the dynamics of the pathogen in the host and the resulting epidemiology of the epidemic in the population. We introduce the concept of the basic reproduction number, R0, and discuss how it relates to the parameters and structure of the SIR model. We begin to discuss how interventions are modeled in the context of SIR models, including vaccination.