Human mobility models for the spread of infectious disease
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics
Abstract
The transmission patterns of infectious diseases depend crucially on how humans move geographically. While infectious disease data are increasingly becoming available at a fine geographic resolution, our understanding of human mobility at similar scales is relatively lacking. Most mathematical models of geographic disease transmission rely on the so-called `gravity model', developed in the 1940s, that describes the movement of individuals between cities as a heuristic function of the population sizes of their home and destination locations. Despite its widespread use, the gravity model has a number of analytical inconsistencies, and does not adequately account for the true variation in human mobility tendencies. This project will involve both theoretical and data-driven investigation to determine how to better model the movement of humans, with application to the spread of infectious diseases. The first step will be an exploratory analysis of how disease transmission models based on different mobility proxies, including the traditional gravity model, the newer `radiation model', and empirical commuting times and distances based on Google Maps data or similar, might yield different disease transmission patterns. Then, using a state-of-the-art dataset on human movement patterns from the UK collected through a geo-tracking mobile phone application, general mathematical descriptions (`kernels') of the movement tendencies of UK residents will be developed. These kernels will form the basis of a theoretical investigation into how individual movement habits translate into city-level geographic patterns in outbreak timing.
Organisations
Studentship Projects
Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
EP/N509620/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2022 | |||
1936275 | Studentship | EP/N509620/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2021 | Maria Tang |
EP/R513180/1 | 01/10/2018 | 30/09/2023 | |||
1936275 | Studentship | EP/R513180/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2021 | Maria Tang |
Description | BBC4 documentary and citizen science experiment |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In a wider team of researchers, I worked on the BBC4 documentary 'Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic' on influenza epidemiology and pandemics, which first aired in March 2018 to mark the centenery of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Alongside ran a nationwide citizen science experiment, in which volunteers in the UK could download the mobile phone app 'BBC Pandemic', which recorded their movement and contact data for one day. Our team of researchers used this data to buld a model of how a pandemic would spread in the UK. The results were presented in the documentary and in subsequent articles. Over 85,000 people participated in the citizen science experiment by downloading and engaging with the app. The data gathered is starting to be released in 2020 for public use in research, beginning with the contact data (DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.16.20023754). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p059y0p1 |