A Brief Overview of

Java Epidemiology

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Are emerging diseases, like Ebola, a serious threat to the world population? Under what conditions would we expect a new infectious disease to spread through a population? Can we predict whether a specific vaccination policy or other public health policy will be effective in preventing the spread of a disease?

These are a small sample of the kinds of questions that can be addressed by JAVA Epidemiology, a computer program that simulates the spread of a disease in a population. By manipulating values such as population death rates, birth rates, the length of time infected individuals are infectious, the probability of disease transmission, and initial population characteristics, and then using the simulation to see how population characteristics change through time, users of Epidemiology can investigate important questions in population biology and public health, develop a deeper understanding of fundamental population concepts, and explore issues related to public health policy.

A key feature of Epidemiology is the easy-to-use interface that allows you to rapidly and intuitively alter population characteristics and to instantaneously see the effects of your alterations. For example, changing the probability of disease transmission can be done quickly and easily, and if the simulation is running, you will immediately see the effect of your changes on the spread of the disease.

Epidemiology is designed to make it easy for you to creatively explore and experiment. Just as importantly, it is designed to help you organize your explorations and keep track of your experiments. You may stop a simulation at any time and mark your place so that you can return to it later to make comparisons, to perform controlled experiments, or simply to refresh your memory.

We hope that you find Epidemiology to be an interesting and productive way to learn about the population dynamics of disease. In any case, we would like to hear from you (both students and faculty) about your experiences with the program. We are particularly interested in knowing the kinds of issues that you have explored, how Epidemiology helped, and what kinds of limitations or problems you encountered. Please contact the Biology Software Lab, or provide feedback using our feedback report forms.

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Copyright © 1999 University of Oregon
All rights reserved.

The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement. The software and/or manuals may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of this agreement.

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