Spatial Agent-Based Simulation Modeling In Public Health: Design, Implementation, And Applications For Malaria Epidemiology

Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is a powerful tool for representing complex biological systems. Beginning with a biological core model of Anopheles gambiae (An. gambiae for short) for malaria epidemiology, the authors develop agent-based simulation models, iteratively refine existing biological concepts, and incrementally add new concepts to the core model. Using the spatial ABM, the effects of spatial heterogeneity are described. The book also includes vector control interventions and geographic informations systems as two examples applications of ABM as well as a brief description of epidemiology modeling, which is an advanced individual-based model. GIS and spatial statistical methods have been extensively used in entomological and epidemiological studiesis in multiple domains (i.e. urban land-use change, military mobile communications, etc.); however, no model-based malaria study has yet to illustrate how to effectively integrate ABM with GIS and other geo-spatial features, and thereby harness the full power of GIS. There is an advantage in building robust integration frameworks that guide the use of geo-spatial features (related to malaria transmission) as model inputs, as opposed to simply using these features as cartographic outputs from the models (as done by mostprevious studies). In addition, the authors discuss how to effectively
integrate spatial ABM with a GIS. The presented location-specific mosquito abundance maps play an important role in malaria control activities, including monitoring the changes of key transmission indices, which, in turn, may assist in guiding future resource allocation for malaria control and identifying hotspots for further investigation. The book concludes that such integrated approaches, which combine knowledge
from entomological, epidemiological, simulation-based, and geo-spatial domains, are required for the identification and analysis of relationships between various transmission variables of the disease, as demonstrated by the application. Eventually, such integration efforts may facilitate the Integrated
Vector Management (IVM) agenda, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to achieve improved efficacy, cost-effectiveness, ecological soundness, and sustainability of vector control for malaria.