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Preface
Author(s) -
Torsten Sjiigren,
Brita Strandberg,
Martin Ekblad
Publication year - 1956
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1955.tb04317.x
Subject(s) - psychology , medicine
Mathematical epidemiology has a long history, going back to the smallpox model of Daniel Bernoulli in 1760. Much of the basic theory was developed between 1900 and 1935, and there has been steady progress since that time. More recently, models to evaluate the effect of control measures have been used to assist in the formulation of policy decisions, notably for the foot and mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain in 2001. The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic of 2002–2003 aroused great interest in the use of mathematical models to predict the course of an infectious disease and to compare the effects of different control strategies. This revived interest has been reinforced by the current threat of an influenza pandemic. Mathematical epidemiology differs from most sciences as it does not lend itself to experimental validation of models. Experiments are usually impossible and would probably be unethical. This gives great importance to mathematical models as a possible tool for the comparison of strategies to plan for an anticipated epidemic or pandemic, and to deal with a disease outbreak in real time. In response to the SARS epidemic, a team was formed by a Canadian center, MITACS (Mathematics for Information Technology and Complex Systems) to work on models for the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases, with a specific goal of evaluating possible management strategies. This team soon recognized that for mathematical modeling to be of assistance in making health policy decisions, it would be necessary to increase the number of mathematical modelers in epidemiology and also to persuade decision makers in the health sciences that mathematical modeling could be useful for them. In pursuit of these goals, a summer school in mathematical epidemiology was developed in 2004 for graduate students from mathematical and biological sciences. This school consisted of a series of lectures on various topics in mathematical epidemiology together with projects done by groups of students, each group containing students from various disciplines and with different levels of experience. In the summer of 2006, another summer school was held, again for a mixed group but this time including a substantial number