TY - JOUR
T1 - Anticipating future learning affects current control decisions
T2 - A comparison between passive and active adaptive management in an epidemiological setting
AU - Atkins, Benjamin D.
AU - Jewell, Chris P.
AU - Runge, Michael C.
AU - Ferrari, Matthew J.
AU - Shea, Katriona
AU - Probert, William J.M.
AU - Tildesley, Michael J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K010972/4; www.bbsrc.ukri. org), and from the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease program of the National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) and the National Institutes of Health (1 R01 GM105247-01; www. nih.gov). MJT and CJ received funding by the Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) program of the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security. Open access funding was provided by UK Research and Innovation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
PY - 2020/12/7
Y1 - 2020/12/7
N2 - Infectious disease epidemics present a difficult task for policymakers, requiring the implementation of control strategies under significant time constraints and uncertainty. Mathematical models can be used to predict the outcome of control interventions, providing useful information to policymakers in the event of such an epidemic. However, these models suffer in the early stages of an outbreak from a lack of accurate, relevant information regarding the dynamics and spread of the disease and the efficacy of control. As such, recommendations provided by these models are often incorporated in an ad hoc fashion, as and when more reliable information becomes available. In this work, we show that such trial-and-error-type approaches to management, which do not formally take into account the resolution of uncertainty and how control actions affect this, can lead to sub-optimal management outcomes. We compare three approaches to managing a theoretical epidemic: a non-adaptive management (AM) approach that does not use real-time outbreak information to adapt control, a passive AM approach that incorporates real-time information if and when it becomes available, and an active AM approach that explicitly incorporates the future resolution of uncertainty through gathering real-time information into its initial recommendations. The structured framework of active AM encourages the specification of quantifiable objectives, models of system behaviour and possible control and monitoring actions, followed by an iterative learning and control phase that is able to employ complex control optimisations and resolve system uncertainty. The result is a management framework that is able to provide dynamic, long-term projections to help policymakers meet the objectives of management. We investigate in detail the effect of different methods of incorporating up-to-date outbreak information. We find that, even in a highly simplified system, the method of incorporating new data can lead to different results that may influence initial policy decisions, with an active AM approach to management providing better information that can lead to more desirable outcomes from an epidemic.
AB - Infectious disease epidemics present a difficult task for policymakers, requiring the implementation of control strategies under significant time constraints and uncertainty. Mathematical models can be used to predict the outcome of control interventions, providing useful information to policymakers in the event of such an epidemic. However, these models suffer in the early stages of an outbreak from a lack of accurate, relevant information regarding the dynamics and spread of the disease and the efficacy of control. As such, recommendations provided by these models are often incorporated in an ad hoc fashion, as and when more reliable information becomes available. In this work, we show that such trial-and-error-type approaches to management, which do not formally take into account the resolution of uncertainty and how control actions affect this, can lead to sub-optimal management outcomes. We compare three approaches to managing a theoretical epidemic: a non-adaptive management (AM) approach that does not use real-time outbreak information to adapt control, a passive AM approach that incorporates real-time information if and when it becomes available, and an active AM approach that explicitly incorporates the future resolution of uncertainty through gathering real-time information into its initial recommendations. The structured framework of active AM encourages the specification of quantifiable objectives, models of system behaviour and possible control and monitoring actions, followed by an iterative learning and control phase that is able to employ complex control optimisations and resolve system uncertainty. The result is a management framework that is able to provide dynamic, long-term projections to help policymakers meet the objectives of management. We investigate in detail the effect of different methods of incorporating up-to-date outbreak information. We find that, even in a highly simplified system, the method of incorporating new data can lead to different results that may influence initial policy decisions, with an active AM approach to management providing better information that can lead to more desirable outcomes from an epidemic.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jtbi.2020.110380
DO - 10.1016/j.jtbi.2020.110380
M3 - Article
C2 - 32698028
AN - SCOPUS:85089137762
VL - 506
JO - Journal of Theoretical Biology
JF - Journal of Theoretical Biology
SN - 0022-5193
M1 - 110380
ER -