Abstract
Mathematical models of mosquito-borne pathogen transmission originated in the early twentieth century to provide insights into how to most effectively combat malaria. The foundations of the Ross-Macdonald theory were established by 1970. Since then, there has been a growing interest in reducing the public health burden of mosquito-borne pathogens and an expanding use of models to guide their control. To assess how theory has changed to confront evolving public health challenges, we compiled a bibliography of 325 publications from 1970 through 2010 that included at least one mathematical model of mosquito-borne pathogen transmission and then used a 79-part questionnaire to classify each of 388 associated models according to its biological assumptions. As a composite measure to interpret the multidimensional results of our survey, we assigned a numerical value to each model that measured its similarity to 15 core assumptions of the Ross-Macdonald model. Although the analysis illustrated a growing acknowledgement of geographical, ecological and epidemiological complexities in modelling transmission, most models during the past 40 years closely resemble the Ross-Macdonald model. Modern theory would benefit from an expansion around the concepts of heterogeneous mosquito biting, poorly mixed mosquito-host encounters, spatial heterogeneity and temporal variation in the transmission process.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 20120921 |
Journal | Journal of the Royal Society Interface |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 81 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 6 2013 |
Keywords
- Dengue
- Epidemiology
- Filariasis
- Infectious disease dynamics
- Vector-borne disease
- West Nile
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biotechnology
- Biophysics
- Bioengineering
- Biomaterials
- Biochemistry
- Biomedical Engineering