EPIDEMIC: a didactic tool for teaching mathematical epidemiology

Bruna Pavlack (1, 2) , Malú Grave (3) , Eber Dantas (3) , Julio Basilio (4) , Leonardo de La Roca (4) , João Pedro Norenberg (1) , Michel Tosin (4) , Lucas Chaves (5) , Diego Matos (4) , Marcos Issa (4) , Roberto Luo (4) , Amanda Cunha Guyt , Luthiana Soares , Rodrigo Burgos (4) , Lisandro Lovisolo (4) , Americo Cunha Jr (4)

1 UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho = São Paulo State University
2 IFMS - Instituto Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul
3 UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro [Brasil] = Federal University of Rio de Janeiro [Brazil] = Université fédérale de Rio de Janeiro [Brésil]
4 UERJ - Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro [Brasil] = Rio de Janeiro State University [Brazil] = Université d'État de Rio de Janeiro [Brésil]
5 UFU - Federal University of Uberlândia [Uberlândia]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a growing interest in society in the area of epidemiology. In this context, emerged the initiative COVID-19: Observatório Fluminense (COVID19RJ), which is managed by a group of independent researchers affiliated with different Brazilian institutions. COVID19RJ publishes trend and monitoring graphs of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and some countries around the world. Due to this demand, the need for an educational code for research in epidemiology arose, with the objective of encouraging and allowing the entry of more researchers in this area. So, EPIDEMIC was developed, this being a code that is organized in a didactic way and divided into three modules: modeling, trends and forecasts. In the modeling module, compartmental models are used to simulate population dynamics during an epidemic. In the trends module, it is possible to monitor the behavior of epidemics in countries, states or municipalities. And in the forecasts module, a statistical regressor is used to obtain predictions about the shortterm behavior of epidemic curves. EPIDEMIC provides a tutorial with explanations and examples of use. The code was developed on the free software GNU Octave and is compatible with the proprietary software MATLAB. EPIDEMIC presents itself as a good aid tool for the teaching and learning process of epidemiology and, consequently, for the increase of researchers in the area.

Mots clés: Palavras-chave. Epidemiology; Educational Code; Compartmental Models; Octave; Trend and Forecast Graphs

Domaines: Systèmes dynamiques [math.DS]; Statistiques [math.ST]; Santé publique et épidémiologie

Bruna Pavlack, Malú Grave, Eber Dantas, Julio Basilio, Leonardo de La Roca, et al.. EPIDEMIC: a didactic tool for teaching mathematical epidemiology. XL Congresso Nacional de Matemática Aplicada e Computacional (CNMAC 2021), Sep 2021, Campo Grande (virtual), Brazil. ⟨hal-03338666⟩