A theoretical single-parameter model for urbanisation to study infectious disease spread and interventions.

ABSTRACT: The world is continuously urbanising, resulting in clusters of densely populated urban areas and more sparsely populated rural areas. We propose a method for generating spatial fields with controllable levels of clustering of the population. We build a synthetic country, and use this method to generate versions of the country with different clustering levels. Combined with a metapopulation model for infectious disease spread, this allows us to in silico explore how urbanisation affects infectious disease spread. In a baseline scenario with no interventions, the underlying population clustering seems to have little effect on the final size and timing of the epidemic. Under within-country restrictions on non-commuting travel, the final size decreases with increased population clustering. The

SUBMITTER: Engebretsen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6424465 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature