title: A sensitivity analysis of the New Zealand standard model of foot and mouth disease.
abstract: Disease simulation models can be a valuable tool for planning a response to exotic disease incursions, as they provide a fast, low-cost mechanism for identifying the likely outcomes of a range of outbreak scenarios and disease control strategies. To use these tools effectively and with confidence, decision-makers must understand the simplifications and framing assumptions that underlie a model's structure. Sensitivity analysis, the analytical process of identifying which input variables are the key drivers of the model's output, is a crucial process in developing this understanding. This paper describes the application of a sampling-based sensitivity analysis to the New Zealand standard model (NZSM). This model is a parameter set developed for the InterSpread Plus model platform to allow the exploration of different outbreak scenarios for an epidemic of foot and mouth disease in New Zealand. Based on 200 iterations of the NZSM, run for a simulation period of 60 days, settings related to farm-to-saleyard movements and the detection of disease during the active surveillance phase of the epidemic had the greatest influence on the predicted number of infected premises. A small number of counter-intuitive findings indicated areas of model design, implementation and/or parameterisation that should be investigated further. A potentially useful result from this work would be information to aid the grouping or elimination of non-influential model settings. This would go some way towards reducing the overall complexity of the NZSM, while still allowing it to remain fit for purpose.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Biosecurity New Zealand, P.O. Box 2526, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Stevenson
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Sanson
mesh_terms: D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D002418:Cattle Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000821:virology; D003198:Computer Simulation / Q000592:standards*; D003612:Dairying / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000662:veterinary*; D005536:Foot-and-Mouth Disease / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D008954:Models, Biological; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011336:Probability; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance / Q000662:veterinary; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013552:Swine; D013553:Swine Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000821:virology