| The Geographic Spread of Infectious Diseases Subjects: Models Theoretical.; Epidemiologic Methods.; Disease Outbreaks; Communicable Diseases; Communicable Diseases; Communicable diseases; The 1918-19 influenza epidemic killed more than fifty million people worldwide. The SARS epidemic of 2002-3, by comparison, killed fewer than a thousand. The success in containing the spread of SARS was due largely to the rapid global response of public health authorities, which was aided by insights resulting from mathematical models. Models enabled authorities to better understand how the disease spread and to assess the relative effectiveness of different control strategies. In this book, Lisa Sattenspiel and Alun Lloyd provide a comprehensive introduction to mathematical models in epidemiology and show how they can be used to predict and control the geographic spread of major infectious diseases. Lisa Sattenspiel is professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri. Alun Lloyd is associate professor of mathematics at North Carolina State University. |