SparseMod:
SPAtial Resolution-SEnsitive Models of Outbreak Dynamics
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SparseMod is a sophisticated epidemiological modeling framework specifically designed to model and predict infectious disease spread within spatially distributed regional networks of population centers. This contrasts SparseMod with earlier modeling frameworks that assume a uniform population density and frequency of contact across the area being modeled. While such models may be suitable for large metropolitan areas, they are unable to model the spatial dynamics that become important in more distributed suburban and rural contexts.
Specific features of SparseMod that make it particularly appropriate for modeling disease spread in rural networks of populations include density-dependent contact rates and spatially-explicit population movement dynamics that are described by dispersal kernels. Our model also includes the effects of demographic stochasticity, which is important in low-density populations, and environmental stochasticity, allowing for random variation in transmission rates over space and time.
Overall, SparseMod recognizes and explicitly models the fact that pathogen propagation dynamics vary based on size of population centers, their distances from each other, and movement patterns between them. This makes SparseMod an excellent basis for predicting disease spread in larger, more sparsely populated regions.