This book is designed to be a practical study in infectious disease dynamics. It offers an easy-to-follow implementation and analysis of mathematical epidemiology. It focuses on recent case studies in order to explore various conceptual, mathematical, and statistical issues. The dynamics of infectious diseases shows a wide diversity of pattern. Some have locally persistent chains-of-transmission, others persist spatially in consumer-resource metapopulations. Some infections are prevalent among the young, some among the old and some are age-invariant. Temporally, some diseases have little variation in prevalence, some have predictable seasonal shifts and others exhibit violent epidemics that may be regular or irregular in their timing.
Models and ''models-with-data'' have proved invaluable for understanding and predicting this diversity, and thence help improve intervention and control. Using mathematical models to understand infectious disease, dynamics has a very ri
