title: An epidemiological model of spatial coupling for trips longer than the infectious period.
abstract: One of the standard methods of accounting for inter-population disease spread in equation-based epidemiology models is through a transportation operator. Implicit in the use of the transportation operator, however, is an assumption that daily travel volumes are small compared to overall population sizes, an assumption that can break down for modern rates of international travel or local commuter traffic. Alternative types of coupling have been proposed in the limit that trip durations are much shorter than the infectious period. We present an extension of these phenomenological models that relaxes both assumptions. We show that the approach produces more accurate results when assessing the impact of mitigative actions using modern travel volumes.
authors.affiliation: Decision Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, PO Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. wdaniel@lanl.gov
authors.forename: W Brent
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: Nicolas W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Hengartner
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Rivera
authors.forename: Dennis R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.forename: Timothy N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: McPherson
mesh_terms: D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014186:Transportation