Infectious disease professionals need better training in modeling

Salil Goyal, a student at the University of California Berkeley, worked with Dr. Andreas Handel.

Models have become increasingly important in the field of infectious disease epidemiology, and broadly in the field of public health, in recent years because the ability of scientists and officials to make educated decisions based on data is important. However, many authors have stated recently (and especially during COVID) that programs that train people working with infectious diseases generally do not impart adequate training in understanding models. While many resources aimed at teaching infectious disease modeling do exist, they are aimed at different audiences and there currently exists no synthesis of these resources. As a potential solution to the problem, we offer here a comprehensive review of resources relevant to the pedagogy of infectious disease epidemiology, with a focus on modeling.

Goyal