Science & Technology - Computer model may predict disease timing

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Computer model may predict disease timing

BOSTON (UPI) -- U.S. and Canadian health scientists say they've created a weather model that might help predict the timing and intensity of infectious diseases.

Tuffs University Associate Professor Elena Naumova and Professor Ian MacNeill of the University of Western Ontario said they have created a model that takes into account weather conditions and other factors that affect the number of people who will fall ill during an outbreak. With the model they show the risk of weather-sensitive diseases might increase with climate variability or even gradual climate change.

The scientists said their model takes into consideration outdoor temperature, base level of a disease in a community before an outbreak, the number of people infected throughout the course of the outbreak and incubation time of a given disease.

"It is this last factor that affects what we call the lag time," said Naumova. "Infected individuals go on to infect others, and current models may be underestimating the number of cases in an outbreak by failing to account for lag time."

The research appeared in the journal Environmetrics.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 06/10/2008

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