Disease Model Background Information

What does this Model Represent?

This model represents a simulated model of the epidemic spread of a disease. The spread of a disease depends on a number of factors, including the infectiousness (how easy it is to catch the disease), the presence of medical centers to cure or vaccinate against the disease, and the hygiene of the general populace. The Infection Netlogo applet models all of these factors in a simulated environment.

What are the elements of this Model?

At the beginning of each model, there is a lone sick person, a certain number of healthy people, and potentially some doctors. When the simulation is run, the agents move about randomly. As the sick person comes into contact with healthy people, it is possible that they too will become sick; but doctors can limit the spread of sickness by vaccinating healthy people or curing sick people.

How do I use this Model?

There are a lot of sliders to the left of the model that allow you to control various settings. When you have the settings you want, simply press [Setup] to generate the population, and then [Go] to run the model. As the model runs, it will display information about the number of healthy, sick, and immune people on monitors and on a graph.

What should I expect?

In general, one of two things will happen. Under most settings, the disease will spread as more and more people become sick until virtually all people are sick, dead, or immune. However, settings with many doctors, high hygiene levels, low infectiousness, etc may generate a scenario where the disease dies out before infecting most people.