Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city
For millennia tuberculosis has shown a successful strategy to survive, making it one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. This resilient behavior is based not only on remaining hidden in most of the infected population, but also by showing slow evolution in most sick people. The course of t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Microbiology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01564/full |
| _version_ | 1818484588744278016 |
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| author | Clara ePrats Cristina eMontañola-Sales Joan Francesc eGilabert Joaquim eValls Josep eCasanovas-Garcia Cristina eVilaplana Pere-Joan eCardona Daniel eLopez |
| author_facet | Clara ePrats Cristina eMontañola-Sales Joan Francesc eGilabert Joaquim eValls Josep eCasanovas-Garcia Cristina eVilaplana Pere-Joan eCardona Daniel eLopez |
| author_sort | Clara ePrats |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For millennia tuberculosis has shown a successful strategy to survive, making it one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. This resilient behavior is based not only on remaining hidden in most of the infected population, but also by showing slow evolution in most sick people. The course of the disease within a population is highly related to its heterogeneity. Thus, classic epidemiological approaches with a top-down perspective have not succeeded in understanding its dynamics. In the past decade a few individual-based models were built, but most of them preserved a top-down view that makes it difficult to study a heterogeneous population.We propose an individual-based model developed with a bottom-up approach to studying the dynamics of pulmonary tuberculosis in a certain population, considered constant. Individuals may belong to the following classes: healthy, infected, sick, under treatment, and treated with a probability of relapse. Several variables and parameters account for their age, origin (native or immigrant), immunodeficiency, diabetes, and other risk factors (smoking and alcoholism). The time within each infection state is controlled, and sick individuals may show a cavitated disease or not that conditions infectiousness. It was implemented in NetLogo because it allows non-modelers to perform virtual experiments with a user-friendly interface.The simulation was conducted with data from Ciutat Vella, a district of Barcelona with an incidence of 67 tuberculosis cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013. Several virtual experiments were performed to relate the disease dynamics with the structure of the infected subpopulation (e.g., the distribution of infected times). Moreover, the short-term effect of health control policies on modifying that structure was studied. Results show that the characteristics of the population are crucial for the local epidemiology of tuberculosis. The developed user-friendly tool is ready to test control strategies of disease in any city in the short-term. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-10T15:57:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-66ae4929925b43c9a6cf11097dd48cb9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-302X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T15:57:10Z |
| publishDate | 2016-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Microbiology |
| spelling | doaj.art-66ae4929925b43c9a6cf11097dd48cb92022-12-22T01:42:35ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Microbiology1664-302X2016-01-01610.3389/fmicb.2015.01564169695Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a cityClara ePrats0Cristina eMontañola-Sales1Joan Francesc eGilabert2Joaquim eValls3Josep eCasanovas-Garcia4Cristina eVilaplana5Pere-Joan eCardona6Daniel eLopez7Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechFundació Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i PujolFundació Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i PujolUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTechFor millennia tuberculosis has shown a successful strategy to survive, making it one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. This resilient behavior is based not only on remaining hidden in most of the infected population, but also by showing slow evolution in most sick people. The course of the disease within a population is highly related to its heterogeneity. Thus, classic epidemiological approaches with a top-down perspective have not succeeded in understanding its dynamics. In the past decade a few individual-based models were built, but most of them preserved a top-down view that makes it difficult to study a heterogeneous population.We propose an individual-based model developed with a bottom-up approach to studying the dynamics of pulmonary tuberculosis in a certain population, considered constant. Individuals may belong to the following classes: healthy, infected, sick, under treatment, and treated with a probability of relapse. Several variables and parameters account for their age, origin (native or immigrant), immunodeficiency, diabetes, and other risk factors (smoking and alcoholism). The time within each infection state is controlled, and sick individuals may show a cavitated disease or not that conditions infectiousness. It was implemented in NetLogo because it allows non-modelers to perform virtual experiments with a user-friendly interface.The simulation was conducted with data from Ciutat Vella, a district of Barcelona with an incidence of 67 tuberculosis cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013. Several virtual experiments were performed to relate the disease dynamics with the structure of the infected subpopulation (e.g., the distribution of infected times). Moreover, the short-term effect of health control policies on modifying that structure was studied. Results show that the characteristics of the population are crucial for the local epidemiology of tuberculosis. The developed user-friendly tool is ready to test control strategies of disease in any city in the short-term.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01564/fullContact TracingEpidemiologyTuberculosisRisk factorsimmigrantIndividual-based model |
| spellingShingle | Clara ePrats Cristina eMontañola-Sales Joan Francesc eGilabert Joaquim eValls Josep eCasanovas-Garcia Cristina eVilaplana Pere-Joan eCardona Daniel eLopez Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city Frontiers in Microbiology Contact Tracing Epidemiology Tuberculosis Risk factors immigrant Individual-based model |
| title | Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| title_full | Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| title_fullStr | Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| title_full_unstemmed | Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| title_short | Individual-based modeling of tuberculosis in a user-friendly interface: understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| title_sort | individual based modeling of tuberculosis in a user friendly interface understanding the epidemiological role of population heterogeneity in a city |
| topic | Contact Tracing Epidemiology Tuberculosis Risk factors immigrant Individual-based model |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01564/full |
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