סמינר מחלקתי

Using models to inform public health policy

Dr. Dan Yamin

Center for Infectious Disease Modeling, School of Public Health, Yale University

Abstract:

The healthcare industry is one of world’s largest and fastest growing industries, with over 7.5% of gross domestic products in most developed countries, including Israel. Using multiple tools from operations research I seek to design and apply theoretical and practical models that capture the interaction among individuals, pharmaceutical companies, and decision makers in dynamic environments. I will present the following three applications and their contribution in shaping health policy: 1) a theoretical epidemiological game model to find the optimal incentive for influenza vaccination, 2) a contact network based model to design a practical vaccination policy to identify the super-spreaders of influenza and prioritizes them for vaccination, and 3) a stochastic transmission model that integrates epidemiological data and data on contacts of patients with Ebola from the current outbreak to evaluate the effect of Ebola progression on transmission and control.