Tracking Dollars and Disease: On the Brink of Real-Time Epidemic Forecasts

I got an email from Dean Ottino regarding Professor Dirk Brockmann's lecture on swine flu predictions.

"Dirk Brockmann and his research group use models of human traffic networks to run large-scale computer simulations on the spread of diseases — including, most recently, swine flu. Their worst-case-scenario projections predict about 2,000 swine flu cases throughout the country by the end of May. Learn more about Brockmann's swine flu projections (http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/507).

In a 2006 study, Brockmann used data from WheresGeorge.com — a site where users enter the serial numbers from their dollar bills in order to track their travels — to create a model to predict the probability of a bill staying within a 10-kilometer radius over time. From that information, Brockmann found a key factor in his disease-spread modeling approach — very accurate datasets on human mobility. This multi-scale human mobility network — including small scale daily commuting traffic, intermediate traffic, and long distance travel by air — helps determine how a disease could potentially spread.

Brockmann's work has been recently featured in media across the country, including CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and on the front page of The New York Times. He and his group are continually updating their swine flu simulations as new information becomes available."

The talk is this Tuesday, May 12 at 4:30 p.m. in the ITW Classroom, Ford Engineering Design Center