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K - College of Natural Resources - University of California, Berkeley

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Abstract<br />

Disease transmission in heterogeneous populations<br />

by<br />

James Oliver Lloyd-Smith<br />

Doctor <strong>of</strong> Philosophy in Biophysics<br />

<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>California</strong>, <strong>Berkeley</strong><br />

Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Wayne M. Getz, Chair<br />

Disease transmission between host individuals is the defining characteristic <strong>of</strong><br />

infectious disease dynamics, and the transmission process is the core element <strong>of</strong> epidemic<br />

models. This dissertation describes advances in the modeling <strong>of</strong> disease transmission in<br />

populations with structural and dynamical heterogeneities, including behavioral changes due to<br />

illness, distinctions in contact patterns and control measures between hospitals and general<br />

communities, and individual-level variation in infectiousness arising from host, pathogen and<br />

environmental factors. Theoretical and empirical approaches are presented, motivated<br />

sometimes by fundamental questions about disease spread, and sometimes by applied problems<br />

related to specific outbreaks.<br />

In Chapter 2, I present a mechanistic derivation <strong>of</strong> the frequency-dependent<br />

transmission model from a pair-based contact process, then extend this classical model to<br />

incorporate effects <strong>of</strong> illness on pairing behavior. Frequency-dependent transmission is the<br />

standard model for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), but a timescale approximation<br />

1

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