In the context of the current health crisis, many predictive models are mentioned in the media. But what exactly is a model, by the way? How does it work? What are the parameters taken into account?

Over the next few weeks, the modelers of the BIOEPAR DYNAMO team will present some key elements of modeling in epidemiology through short educational articles. These articles will help you to better understand and decipher the hypotheses underlying the epidemiological models that are widely used at the moment, and how these hypotheses can impact the predictions of the spread of pathogens, particularly SARS-CoV-2. The objective is to discover the advantages and limitations of mechanistic modeling, an approach that is at the core of the DYNAMO team's work. The examples of models will be inspired by models used in times of crisis, but sometimes simplified to make them accessible.

A series of articles to be discovered over the next few weeks:

#1 – What does an epidemiological model diagram say ?

#2 – What does this model predict ?

#3 – Quality of this prediction

#4 – The importance of the beginning (often unobserved) of an epidemic

#5 – Why represent the heterogeneity of infected individuals in the model? (1/2)

#6 – Why represent the heterogeneity of infected individuals in the model? (2/2)