The Dynamical Survival Analysis (DSA) is a framework for modeling epidemics based on mean field dynamics applied to individual (agent) level history of infection and recovery. Recently, the Dynamical Survival Analysis (DSA) method has been shown to be an effective tool in analyzing complex non-Markovian epidemic processes that are otherwise difficult to handle using standard methods. One of the advantages of Dynamical Survival Analysis (DSA) is its representation of typical epidemic data in a simple although not explicit form that involves solutions of certain differential equations. In this work we describe how a complex non-Markovian Dynamical Survival Analysis (DSA) model may be applied to a specific data set with the help of appropriate numerical and statistical schemes. The ideas are illustrated with a data example of the COVID-19 epidemic in Ohio.
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Dynamic survival analysis for non-Markovian epidemic models
We present a new method for analysing stochastic epidemic models under minimal assumptions. The method, dubbed dynamic survival analysis (DSA), is based on a simple yet powerful observation, namely that population-level mean-field trajectories described by a system of partial differential equations may also approximate individual-level times of infection and recovery. This idea gives rise to a certain non-Markovian agent-based model and provides an agent-level likelihood function for a random sample of infection and/or recovery times. Extensive numerical analyses on both synthetic and real epidemic data from foot-and-mouth disease in the UK (2001) and COVID-19 in India (2020) show good accuracy and confirm the method’s versatility in likelihood-based parameter estimation. The accompanying software package gives prospective users a practical tool for modelling, analysing and interpreting epidemic data with the help of the DSA approach.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2027001
- PAR ID:
- 10421175
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of The Royal Society Interface
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 191
- ISSN:
- 1742-5662
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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