Abstract

Citation

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Miller, S. (2022). 6-001-Epidemic-ModelingScenario. SIMIODE, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/N6DF-2J82

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Article Context

Description

This paper presents real-world data, a problem statement, and discussion of a common approach to modeling that data, including student responses. In particular, we provide time-series data on the number of boys bedridden due to an outbreak of influenza at an English boarding school and ask students to build a mathematical model, either discrete or continuous, of this epidemic, and to estimate the parameters in their model and validate it against the data. Students will need access to a computer or computer lab with spreadsheet software, a computer algebra system, or a sufficient statistical analysis system such as R.

A boarding school is a relatively closed community in which all students live on campus, teachers tend to live on or near campus, and students do not regularly interact with people not in the boarding school community. We give data for an influenza outbreak at a boarding school in England during which there were no fatalities. These data were compiled from the Communicable Disease Surveillance Center from 1978. The data values were extracted from the graph.