Modeling Infectious Diseases in Humans and Animals .pdf

This book is designed as an introduction to the modeling of infectious diseases. We start with the simplest of mathematical models and show how the inclusion of appropriate elements of biological complexity leads to improved understanding of disease dynamics and control. Throughout, our emphasis is on the development of models, and their use either as predictive tools or as a means of understanding fundamental epidemiological processes. Although many theoretical results can be proved analytically for very simple models, we have generally focused on results obtained by computer simulation, providing analytical results only where they lead to a more generic interpretation of model behavior. Where practical, we have illustrated the general modeling principles with applied examples from the recent literature. We hope this book motivates readers to develop their own models for diseases of interest, expanding on the model frameworks given here.