Models for Understanding and Controlling Global Infectious Diseases

Catalog description

(HUMBIO students must enroll in HUMBIO 154D. Med/Graduate students must enroll in HRP 204.) This course introduces students to the dynamics of infectious diseases of global health importance, focusing on the use of mathematical models to characterize their transmission in populations. Relevant case examples of pathogens with differing natural history and transmission routes include tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, typhoid, and cholera, as well emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola and the 2019 novel coronavirus. Lectures will emphasize the theoretical basis underlying infectious disease dynamics and link them to in-class workshops and problem sets that will emphasize public health applications and will provide students with hands-on experience in creating and coding models. Students will learn the mathematical underpinnings of key topics in infectious disease transmission including herd immunity, the basic reproductive number, vaccine effects, social contact structure, host heterogeneities, and pathogen fitness. The course will teach students how to approach new questions in infectious disease transmission, from model selection, tradeoffs in model complexity or parsimony, parameterization, sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. Students will practice building models, evaluating the influence of model parameters, making predictions about disease trajectories, and projecting the impact of public health interventions. Prerequisites: HUMBIO 88 or 89 or STATS 141 or BIOSCI 141. Recommended courses: MATH 51 or CME 100; BIO 141 or BIOHOPK 174H