Computational epidemiology

Computational epidemiology is a multidisciplinary field that uses techniques from computer science, mathematics, geographic information science and public health to better understand issues central to epidemiology such as the spread of diseases or the effectiveness of a public health intervention.

Introduction

In contrast with traditional epidemiology, computational epidemiology looks for patterns in unstructured sources of data, such as social media. It can be thought of as the hypothesis-generating antecedent to hypothesis-testing methods such as national surveys and randomized controlled trials. A mathematical model is developed which describes the observed behavior of the viruses, based on the available data. Then simulations of the model are performed to understand the possible outcomes given the model used. These simulations produce as results projections which can then be used to make predictions or verify the facts and then be used to plan interventions and meters towards the control of the disease's spread.

gollark: According to Wikipedia he's been with Tesla from a year after they started and ran it since 2008, so I feel like he deserves much of the credit for that.
gollark: It's ridiculous to complain that he doesn't know much about rocketry and stuff himself and (THE HORROR) hired competent people who do, and managed to improve the state of space travel a lot.
gollark: I'm not sure what you mean by "apartheid profiting", but generally that seems pretty stupid.
gollark: Unless they have a warrant, you can apparently just tell them to go away and they can't do anything except try and get one based on seeing TV through your windows or something.
gollark: But the enforcement of it is even weirder than that:- there are "TV detector vans". The BBC refuses to explain how they actually work in much detail. With modern TVs I don't think this is actually possible, and they probably can't detect iPlayer use, unless you're stupid enough to sign up with your postcode (they started requiring accounts some years ago).- enforcement is apparently done by some organization with almost no actual legal power (they can visit you and complain, but not *do* anything without a search warrant, which is hard to get)- so they make up for it by sending threatening and misleading letters to try and get people to pay money


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.