Outbreak analysis and modelling
Theme lead
The Centre has been at the forefront of delivering timely analysis to inform policy responses to emerging infectious disease threats. Since the Centre’s establishment in 2008, Centre staff have undertaken collaborative real-time epidemiological analysis and modelling of many important outbreaks/epidemics including: the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the MERS-CoV outbreak, the Zika epidemics, and the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both during and between these intensive efforts, we prioritize:
- Developing responsive and statistically robust pipelines for outbreak analysis. Considerable effort is put into developing analytical pipelines capable of being rapidly adapted to each new outbreak and then used repeatedly with each data update;
- Improving timely risk assessment and outbreak forecasting. We continue to develop methods for increasingly rapid assessment of outbreak severity (CFR and likely spread) from spatiotemporally disaggregated incidence data, and for improving short- to medium-term forecasting of epidemic trajectories;
- Assessing the impacts of outbreak responses. This ongoing research theme has both retrospective and predictive aspects. Some projects estimate what the impact of particular control policies was in the past, while some predict what a range of possible interventions would be in the future or would have been had they been implemented in the past. Modelling is particularly well suited to answering such ‘what if’ questions;
- Improving spatiotemporal transmission models. We are working toward a fully integrated inference and prediction framework for geographically explicit individual-based stochastic simulations for real-time use for epidemic prediction and intervention assessment;
- Modelling emergence risk and prophylactic vaccination impact. We are developing geospatial models to understand the risk of zoonotic spillover for Lassa and Yellow Fever and to assess the potential impact of targeted vaccination;
- Building research networks. Outbreak analysis and modelling is increasingly a collective effort, with other UK and international centres making major contributions. We actively collaborate at all scales from working with individual researchers based elsewhere to championing formal networks linking centres of excellence.
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Hosted initiatives and groups
Discover more about our work in this theme through our various initiatives and research groups:
- NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Modelling and Health Economics
- London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research
- UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling and Projections
- Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium
- Global Health & Development Group
- Health Economics Group
- R Epidemics Consortium (RECON)
- HIV Modelling Consortium
- Bacterial Evolutionary Epidemiology Group
Disease areas
Learn more about our work in outbreak analysis and modelling in each of our focus disease areas:
People
Professor Neil Ferguson
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Professor Neil Ferguson
Professor of Mathematical Biology and Head of Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Dr Marc Baguelin
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Dr Marc Baguelin
Lecturer
Dr Isobel Blake
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Dr Isobel Blake
Lecturer
Professor Thomas Churcher
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Professor Thomas Churcher
Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics
Professor Christl Donnelly
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Professor Christl Donnelly
Professor of Statistical Epidemiology
Dr Ilaria Dorigatti
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Dr Ilaria Dorigatti
Senior Lecturer & Sir Henry Dale Fellow
Dr Jeff Eaton
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Dr Jeff Eaton
Senior Lecturer in HIV Epidemiology
Professor Matthew Fisher
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Professor Matthew Fisher
Professor of Fungal Disease Epidemiology
Dr Tini Garske
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Dr Tini Garske
Senior Lecturer
Professor Azra Ghani
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Professor Azra Ghani
Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Professor Nicholas Grassly
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Professor Nicholas Grassly
Professor of Infectious Disease & Vaccine Epidemiology
Professor Simon Gregson
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Professor Simon Gregson
Professor in Demography and Behavioural Science
Professor Timothy Hallett
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Professor Timothy Hallett
Professor of Global Health
Professor Katharina Hauck
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Professor Katharina Hauck
Professor in Health Economics
Dr Thibaut Jombart
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Dr Thibaut Jombart
Senior Lecturer
Professor Steven Riley
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Professor Steven Riley
Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics
Professor Caroline Trotter
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Professor Caroline Trotter
Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Dr Patrick Walker
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Dr Patrick Walker
Lecturer
Prof Peter White
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Prof Peter White
Professor in Public Health Modelling