Interdisciplinary applications of ecological and epidemiological models relatring to the welfare of human populations

在一个领域进行的研究往往与其他领域遇到的问题高度相关，或者与研究在现实世界中的应用密切相关。然而，纪律障碍可能会阻碍将这些信息转化为进展所需的各个领域的沟通。在我提出的研究中，部分通过密切的跨学科合作，我将把种群生物学中的工具和方法转化为其他需要它们的领域。特别是，这些方法将应用于人类人口福利方面的问题：(1)了解自愿接种疫苗政策下的人类行为；(2)改进对卫生技术的循证评估；以及(3)研究现代人口学中的问题。例如，关于自愿接种疫苗政策，人们注意到，疾病流行和人类接种行为可以相互影响，形成一种动态的相互作用：疫苗覆盖率越高，疾病越少，这就减少了接种疫苗的动力，而这反过来又可能带来更多的疾病。我的研究建议将疾病通过社会网络传播的模型与经济博弈论方法结合起来，以更好地理解自愿接种疫苗，以及为什么不接种疫苗的父母(在博弈论术语中，“作弊者”)威胁到一些自愿接种疫苗政策，而不是其他政策。我的研究还建议调查这种社交网络模型以及其他先进的传染病建模技术，如何提高我们对疫苗和抗生素等新的健康技术进行严格的循证评估的能力。该提案中的第三个项目涉及从人口生物学的角度看待发达国家不断下降的出生率。人口生物学家长期以来一直研究生育率和资源之间的关系，因此对这一人口问题及其对发达国家和低收入国家的长期影响可能有独特和有见地的观点。

Research conducted in one field is often highly relevant to problems encountered in other fields, or in real-world applications of research. However, disciplinary barriers can prevent the communication across fields required to translate this information into progress. In my proposed research, partly through close interdisciplinary collaborations, I will translate tools and methods from population biology into other fields where they are needed. In particular, these methods will be applied to problems in the welfare of human populations: (1) understanding human behaviour under voluntary vaccination policies, (2) improving evidence-based assessments of health technologies, and (3) studying problems in modern demography. With respect to voluntary vaccination policy, for instance, it has been noted that disease prevalence and human vaccinating behaviour can influence one another in a dynamic interplay: higher vaccine coverage causes less disease, which reduces the incentive to vaccinate, which in turn may bring about more disease. My research proposes to combine models of disease transmission through social networks with economic game theory approaches to better understand voluntary vaccination, and why vaccine-averse parents (in game theoretical terms, "cheaters") threaten some voluntary vaccination policies but not others. My research also proposes to investigate how such social network models, as well as other advanced infectious disease modelling techniques, can improve our ability to make rigorous evidence-based assessments of new health technologies such as vaccines and antibiotics. A third project in this proposal involves adopting a population biological perspective to declining birth rates in advanced countries. Population biologists have long studied the relationship between fertility and resources, and therefore may have unique and insightful perspectives on this demographic problem and its long-term implications for both advanced and lower-income countries.