Computational Epidemiology

1
Computational Epidemiology

• Using Agent-Based Modeling

2
What is epidemiology?

• Epidemiology is the branch of medicine that deals
  with the study of the causes, distribution, and
  control of disease in populations.

3
Tools employed by Epidemiologists

• Tools currently employed by epidemiologists
  include such things as
• Experimentation on live animals (which is
  becoming more and more expensive and unethical.)
• Field studies and historical data (which may or
  may not be incomplete)

4
Computational Epidemiology Solution

• Using Computational Epidemiology, we can create
  different models over which we have complete
  power to define and modify them as needed.

5
Advantages of Computational Epidemiology

• No animals need to be harmed
• Real-time data may be used
• Different aspects of a disease can be seen
  visually by simply changing the parameters of the
  simulation

6
Tuberculosis Research Group

• We will apply the concepts of Computational
  Epidemiology to simulate the specific outbreaks
  of TB at a Fort Worth industrial plant using the
  Swarm (agent-based modeling group) libraries.