An experienced infectious disease modeller will help you to:
Why are mathematical models useful?
Infectious disease dynamics often involve a large number of unknown factors. Unlike statistical analyses which attempt to make conclusions from given data, mathematical models go further: they try to understand the functioning of the infectious disease, present this in mathematical terms, and by combining knowledge from different sources, find a stable solution that allows to also predict the future with the same model. With a rigorously and appropriately developed mathematical model, we can make short- and long-term predictions about infectious disease epidemics – for example, how many people will need intensive hospital care in the coming week, how many people will be expected to die within the next year, or what are the total costs of managing the epidemic
How does this service work?
01.
The client will provide:
- The research question
- List of available (non-public) data
02.
We will provide:
- A suggestion of possible modelling approaches
- Review of existing modelling studies and publicly availabel data (model inputs)
03.
After the procedure is agreed between the client and us, we will:
- Adapt or develop a mathematical model package (structure and corresponding simulation software) tailored for the client’s needs
- Together with the client, agree on prior model assumptions and parameters
- Calibrate the model with data that are publicly available and/or provided by the client to get a fully robust parameterisation that reproduces sufficiently well the past epidemic
- Agree with the client about the exact future intereventions and scenarios to model, and their costs
- Run the model: project the future development of the epidemic in different scenarios, and if necessary, the cost-effectiveness of different interventions
The final deliverables include:
- The full software package with the model, together with clear user instructions
- A user-firendly Excel-based interface for updating the model’s results with new inputs
- A full report of results
Who is this service primarily intended for?
- Government agencies and non-governmental organizations doing long-term policy planning related to infectious diseases
- Hospitals and healthcare authorities to manage and plan resource need
- Clinicians and other researchers who have little or no experience in epidemiological modelling (yet)
Pricing
Important!
In mathematical modelling, understanding the limitations and uncertainty is crucial. Mathematical model projections have absolutely no guarantee. They reflect what follows from the assumptions – but the assumptions can very easily be wrong. Therefore we recommend to interpret any modelling results – including those produced ourselves – critically and use them only in connection with a thorough review of other existing evidence to guide policy decisions.
Please see also our Conditions section for general conditions about copyright and ownership of the work.