Inference for infectious diseases from multivariate serological survey data

该项目的目的是开发新的方法，帮助我们了解传染病如何在人群中传播，从而提高我们通过接种疫苗控制这些疾病的能力。待开发的方法将用于血清学数据，即从血液测试中获得的数据。这些测试确定一个人是否有，或没有，被一个或多个感染感染。基于这些数据的大型研究通常用于规划疫苗接种计划，并监测现有疫苗接种计划在维持足以预防大规模流行病发生的免疫水平方面的成功程度。然而，目前用于分析血清学数据的大多数方法都用于孤立地观察每种感染。该项目旨在开发新的方法，以同时分析几种感染的血清学数据。这可能是富有成效的原因是，同一个人体内不同感染的发生可能是相关的。例如，去托儿所的儿童更有可能感染由密切接触者传播的所有儿童感染。该项目背后的想法是利用不同感染之间的相关性（可以使用血清学数据测量）来告诉我们接触模式，它们在个体之间如何变化，以及它们如何随年龄变化。我们建议的方法是为这类数据开发新的统计模型，基于相关假设，即可能导致相关性出现的原因。这些模型的结果可以用来提高我们对感染传播的理解，例如，通过提供更好的估计需要接种疫苗以防止大规模流行病的儿童比例，或者通过帮助确定感染是如何传播的，如果这是未知的。该项目涉及两名申请人之间的合作，他们在传染病的统计建模方面有着长期的经验，卫生保护局局长？s血清流行病学方案。到目前为止，已经收集了许多关于不同感染的数据，并进行了初步分析，以核实该项目？的理由是有根据的。在这项申请中，我们寻求资助一名研究人员在申请人的监督下全职从事该项目三年。

The aim of this project is to develop new methods that will aid our understanding of how infectious diseases spread in a population, and hence improve our ability to control those diseases by vaccination. The methods to be developed will be used with serological data, that is, data obtained from blood tests. These tests determine whether a person has, or has not, been infected by one or more infections. Large studies based on such data are commonly used to plan vaccination programmes, and to monitor how successful existing vaccination programmes are at maintaining levels of immunity sufficient to prevent the occurrence of large epidemics. However, most of the methods that are currently employed to analyse serological data are used to look at each infection in isolation. The project is to develop new methods to analyse serological data on several infections at the same time. The reason why this might be fruitful is that the occurrences of different infections within the same individuals are likely to be correlated. For example, children who go to nurseries are more likely to get infected by all childhood infections that are transmitted by close contacts. The idea behind the project is to use the correlations between different infections (which can be measured using serological data) to tell us about contact patterns, how they vary between individuals, and how they vary with age. The way we propose to do this is by developing new statistical models for this type of data, based on relevant hypotheses about what might be causing the correlations to arise. The results from these models can then be used to improve our understanding of the spread of infections, for example by providing better estimates of the proportion of children that need to be vaccinated to prevent large epidemics, or by helping to identify how infections are transmitted if this is not known. The project involves a collaboration between the two applicants, who have long experience of statistical modelling of infectious diseases, and the Head of the Health Protection Agency?s Seroepidemiology Programme. So far, much data on different infections have been collected, and initial analyses have been undertaken to verify that the project?s rationale is well-founded. In this application, we seek funding for a researcher to work on the project full-time for three years under the supervision of the applicants.