The Mathematics and Statistics of Infectious Disease Outbreaks
The aim of the course is to gain understanding of models for the spread of infectious diseases and to draw conclusions from observations of an ongoing outbreak. The contents of the course includes basic models for the spread of infectious diseases and their basic properties, simulation of more complicated epidemic models and finally statistical methods for estimating parameters and predicting the outcome of an epidemic.
The course consists of two elements; theory and project.
Teaching Format
Teaching consists of lectures and supervision of project work. The course is given in English, and has no mandatory teaching.
Assessment
The course is assessed in the following manner:
- Written exam for the theory part.
- Hand-in assignments for the project work.
Both parts are graded according to a 7-point scale. In order to pass, a grade of at least E is required for both parts of the course. The final grade combines the grades of the two parts of the course, weighted according to their numbers of credits.
Examiner
A list of examiners can be found on
No mandatory literature.
Recommended supplementary reading:
Books:
- Becker, N, Modeling to Inform Infectious Disease Control (2015)
- Diekmann O, Heesterbeek H, Britton T, Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics (2013)
- Keeling MJ, Rohani P, Modeling Infectious Diseases (2008)
Articles:
- Britton, T. Epidemic models on social networks - With inference (2020) Statistica Neerlandica 74 (3), 222-241.
- Britton, T. (2010) Stochastic epidemic models: a survey. Math. Biosci, 225, 24-35.
