Pré-Saint-Didier (Aosta, Italy) - January 18-20 2012

Epidemic models aided by computer simulations and information technologies represent an increasingly important tool for the understanding of transmission dynamics, and the analysis of epidemic patterns. Thanks to high performance computing and the innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), sophisticated modeling approaches informed by realistic and detailed data sets are now feasible and aim at helping and supporting the decision process at the medical and public health levels. An example is provided by the unprecedented effort in the use of mathematical and computational models aimed at predicting a variety of possible scenarios and evaluating treatment and control strategies in real time for the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. While opening new opportunities in the analysis of infectious diseases, the nascent field of computational epidemiology also faces a number of technical and conceptual challenges and the uses and quality criteria are still contrasted especially in the applications to the public health decision making process.

The Workshop brings together experts in the field of infectious disease modeling to discuss the advances reached in the use of sophisticate modeling, computational approaches, and ICT applications in the area of infectious diseases. A special focus will be on methods for generating rapid parameter estimates, real time forecasting and the interface between policy making and modeling. A key aim of the workshop is also the discussion of the research priorities for the future of computational modeling and ICT applications in the analysis of infectious disease spreading.

The key topics of the meeting are:

• Large Scale Stochastic Simulations
• Networks
• The Impact of Population Structure on Transmission
• Surveillance and policy making
• Evolution and Epidemiology