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Getting human behavior into epidemiology models

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

Infectious disease modeling efforts are emblematic of the challenges of modeling coupled human-environmental systems. These challenges exist conceptually, theoretically, and empirically, and are made more challenging by disciplinary norms. COVID-19 has pumped substantial amounts of energy into interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to epidemiological modeling. However, I see many of the over-simplifications, related to challenges we have struggled with for over 10 years, finding their way into high profile reports and publications that are guiding policy response. The challenges start with implicit disciplinary disagreement about what is being modeled and why. They are further complicated by scaling issues, which are tightly connected to disciplinary views of model assessment that point back to the reasons for modeling. In this talk, I will describe my lessons learned and outline a research program for couple human-epidemiological modeling going forward with the goal of providing insights for other human-environmental modeling and for public health.

Mathematics; Biology And Other Natural Sciences; Dynamical Systems And Ergodic Theory

video/mp4

Author affiliation: Yale University

2021-07-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79084

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/