A century of transitions in New York City's measles dynamics.

Hempel, Karsten; Earn, David J D · J R Soc Interface · 2015

other · Level V

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Abstract

Infectious diseases spreading in a human population occasionally exhibit sudden transitions in their qualitative dynamics. Previous work has successfully predicted such transitions in New York City's historical measles incidence using the seasonally forced susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) model. This work relied on a dataset spanning 45 years (1928-1973), which we have extended to 93 years (1891-1984). We identify additional dynamical transitions in the longer dataset and successfully explain them by analysing attractors and transients of the same mechanistic epidemiological model.

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