Open AccessForecasting influenza in Europe using a metapopulation model incorporating cross-border commuting and air travel
Author(s) -
Sarah Krämer,
Sen Pei,
Jeffrey Shaman
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos computational biology/plos computational biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.628
H-Index - 182
eISSN - 1553-7358
pISSN - 1553-734X
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008233
Subject(s) - metapopulation , air travel , work (physics) , operations research , computer science , geography , econometrics , aviation , economics , engineering , environmental health , medicine , population , biological dispersal , mechanical engineering , aerospace engineering
Past work has shown that models incorporating human travel can improve the quality of influenza forecasts. Here, we develop and validate a metapopulation model of twelve European countries, in which international translocation of virus is driven by observed commuting and air travel flows, and use this model to generate influenza forecasts in conjunction with incidence data from the World Health Organization. We find that, although the metapopulation model fits the data well, it offers no improvement over isolated models in forecast quality. We discuss several potential reasons for these results. In particular, we note the need for data that are more comparable from country to country, and offer suggestions as to how surveillance systems might be improved to achieve this goal.