#18 · Systems biology

Population structure, noise and forcing shape whether transmission inferences hold

The common thread is that inferred transmission dynamics depend on model structure and statistical design as much as on data. An agent-based dynamic network model calibrated to NATSAL-3 indicates that concurrency shapes STI transmission within sexual partnership networks. A stochastic SIR model with a CIR-driven transmission rate shows that exogenous noise increases early extinctions and case variability. A simulation study finds that negative binomial GAM time-series regression often fails to recover weather effects on infectious disease counts. What is new is joint attention to how population structure, environmental forcing and noise alter whether conclusions drawn from transmission models and data are supportable.