Overview
The summer school school will include lectures on mathematical epidemiology,
and one of the most important aspects will be projects for groups
of 4–6 students, mixing scientific backgrounds and levels of
experience, and focusing on real-world problems around which students
develop and analyze models. It will also incorporate several lectures
on public-health topics with focus on those relevant to other events
of MPE2013 such as global spread, Indigenous populations health, vector-borne
diseases and integration of surveillance, statistical data analysis
and dynamical modelling and simulations.
The goals of the Summer School are to encourage more developing scientists
to become interested in this field and to encourage communication
between mathematical modellers and public health scientists and epidemiologists
who have been historically unaware of the uses of mathematical modeling.
Outline of the draft program
The program consists of:
1. coordinated sequences of lectures to cover the basic concepts
and techniques in disease modelling;
2. public lectures for detailed case studies of specific diseases
and public health issues. These lectures are indeed for the general
public, specially for those not necessarily specialized in the
field, so students of the summer school can learn how to communicate
mathematical results effectively with the public;
3. pre-assigned student group projects, identified in advance
with partner organizations;
4. student presentations.
Lecture notes will be available before the school, and students
will be encouraged and assisted to follow-up their group projects
for peer-reviewed journal publications.
The tentative schedule is given below:
Day 1: Registration, Public Lecture.
Day 2: Review of Basics: mathematics, epidemiology, stochastic
simulations, computer lab.
Day 3: Basic deterministic compartmental models.
Day 4: Extensions of basic models, calculation of basic reproduction
number, stochastic models (I).
Day 5: (held at the Fields Institute) Statistical issues and
data analysis and structured population models; Public Lecture
(Backward calculation of Canadian HIV/AIDS incidence).
Day 6: Meta-population: general theory; meta-population: applications
to disease spread in transportation networks; Public Lecture (Global
spread of emerging diseases).
Day 7: Student projects.
Day 8: Network modeling and agent-based simulations; Public Lecture
(Impact of demographic variables on disease spread in remote communities).
Day 9: Disease spread: partial differential equations and periodic
systems; Public Lecture (West Nile virus and Lyme disease).
Day 10: Stochastic models (II); advanced topics on surveillance,
data analysis and model parametrization; Student project presentations
(I).
Day 11: Student project presentations (II).
