Development and Utilization of a Spatial and Temporal Modeling System to Investigate Disease Outbreaks in Vermont

Faced with limited financial and personnel resources, public health researchers and policy makers are increasingly relying on computer modeling systems to investigate complex phenomena such as disease outbreaks – both natural and manmade – at the local, national and global levels. With multiple possible disease scenarios, multiple possible intervention strategies and a high likelihood of one-time events, the ability to simulate the temporal and geographic spread of disease burden greatly enhances the capability of public health officials to prepare for, to monitor the progress of and to intervene in a disease outbreak. Toward this end, it is vitally important that computer modeling systems be developed to model disease outbreaks at the state and local level. We have extended a previously reported Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM) to investigate disease outbreaks in Vermont (STEM-VT) and have shown its utility by describing hypothetical outbreaks of pandemic influenza. The methodology described here reveals that disease outbreaks can be modeled at the state and local level through modification of an existing, extensible computer platform.