Overview
This unit covers epidemiological parameters of infectious diseases. Some of these quantities directly inform public health activities and clinical practices. Epidemiological parameters can also be used as inputs to mathematical and statistical models, whose results help evaluate control strategies.
The course will first provide a classification and explanation of key parameters, including concepts such as delays, demographics, transmission, surveillance, clinical indicators, severity, interventions, and genomics.
It then present examples of epidemiological parameters and discuss how they are used in models and real-time outbreak responses. Next, it will briefly review the methods and data required for estimation, along with potential sources of bias. Additionally, the modules will discuss tools for estimating, accessing, and using epidemiological parameters, and introduce R libraries and tools for estimating and utilizing these parameters effectively.
- Reflect on the applications of epidemic theory to address public health problems caused by infectious diseases.
- Understand the data and methods needed to estimate epidemiological parameters.
- Be able to evaluate the quality of epidemiological parameters based on best practices.
- Become familiar with tools for accessing and estimating epidemiological parameters.
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