Assessing the heterogeneity in the transmission of infectious diseases from time series of epidemiological data.

ABSTRACT: Structural features and the heterogeneity of disease transmissions play an essential role in the dynamics of epidemic spread. But these aspects can not completely be assessed from aggregate data or macroscopic indicators such as the effective reproduction number. We propose in this paper an index of effective aggregate dispersion (EffDI) that indicates the significance of infection clusters and superspreading events in the progression of outbreaks by carefully measuring the level of relative stochasticity in time series of reported case numbers using a specially crafted statistical model for reproduction. This allows to detect potential transitions from predominantly clustered spreading to a diffusive regime with diminishing significance of singular clusters, which can be a decisive turnin

SUBMITTER: Schneckenreither G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10228818 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature