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Imperial College London

Building on the SIR Model

The other two courses in this specialisation require you to perform deterministic modelling - in other words, the epidemic outcome is predictable as all parameters are fully known. However, this course delves into the many cases – especially in the early stages of an epidemic – where chance events can be influential in the future of an epidemic. So, you'll be introduced to some examples of such ‘stochasticity’, as well as simple approaches to modelling these epidemics using R. You will examine how to model infections for which such ‘population structure’ plays an important role in the transmission dynamics, and will learn some of the basic approaches to modelling vector-borne diseases, including the Ross-McDonald Model. Even if you are not designing and simulating mathematical models in future, it is important to be able to critically assess a model so as to appreciate its strengths and weaknesses, and identify how it could be improved. One way of gaining this skill is to conduct a critical peer review of a modelling study as a reviewer, which is an opportunity you'll get by taking this course.

Status: R Programming
Status: Predictive Modeling
IntermediateCourse20 hours

Featured reviews

GC

Reviewed Jun 23, 2020

I thought it was clear, the syntax problems were about the same topic and needed the solution talked about in the videos. The subject was completely covered. I already recommended it to like 5 people.

KM

Reviewed Jul 1, 2023

The peer review grade is not working properly. It is not showing result.

DG

Reviewed Jun 19, 2021

​a great follow up to the R coding course and a good entree into the world of public health

AT

Reviewed Aug 13, 2020

I have found it useful for increasing my insights into infectious disease modelling.

AL

Reviewed Sep 6, 2020

Excellent course, good information. Excellent instructors.

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