10 Influenza Pandemic Models

By Claude Penland, Associate of the

Casualty Actuarial Society
www.CatRisky.com
 What are we doing?
• We will discuss some different types of
influenza pandemic models.
• This is not intended to be a comprehensive
look at the state of pandemic modeling, and
instead is merely a discussion of some
interesting flu pandemic models.
 What is a Pandemic?
• Pandemics are infectious disease epidemics
that spread across a wide region.
• Recent pandemics include the flu pandemic
of 2009 and the HIV pandemic.
• Historical pandemics have also included
outbreaks of tuberculosis and smallpox.
 1. Society of Actuaries
• The Society of Actuaries’ model evaluates
the potential impact on the United States
life insurance industry.
• Actuarial analysis looks at possible
economic effects as well as potential excess
insured mortality.
 2. Pandemic Influenza
Policy Model
• Military Medicine looks at a policy model for
military public health officials.
• This Pandemic Influenza Policy Model (PIPM) is
a collaborative computer modeling effort between
the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory and U.S. Department of Defense.
• Incidentally, the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security’s “Best Practices and Model Protocols”
provides many interesting discussions of model
inputs.
 3. Risk Management Solutions
• The model by a catastrophe risk modeling firm,
Risk Management Solutions (RMS), supplies
thousands of unique pandemic scenarios.
• These vary based on demographics, virus
infectiousness, vaccine production and efficacy,
lethality of virus and pandemic lifecycle.
• Additional information is available at “Managing
Influenza Pandemic Risk”.
 4. FluTE
• FluTE is an open source model.
• The model is calibrated so that outcomes
are consistent with the 2009 pandemic
A(H1N1) and 1957/1958 Asian A(H2N2)
influenza viruses.
 5. Milliman
• Milliman, a consulting actuary, has modeled
pandemics so that they may price mortality
catastrophe bonds.
• It is an actuarial model based on a
frequency and severity approach.
 6. Epidemic Simulation System
• The National Infrastructure Simulation and
Analysis Center (NISAC), which is at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory, has the
Epidemic Simulation System (EpiSimS).
• EpiSimS models the U.S. as fifteen regions.
• Each region is composed of around 20
million synthetic individuals.
7. INFORMS Simulation Society
• At the INFORMS Simulation Society
Winter Conference of 2009, a paper was
presented on a simulation model for
pandemic preparedness planning.
• The paper presents a geospatial and
temporal disease spread model for flu
pandemics with particular attention paid to
school closings.
 8. Global Epidemic Model
• The Global Epidemic Model (GEM)
enables testing of intervention strategies.
• It uses uses population data and airline
travel data to create an air travel network
among the major metropolitan areas of the
world.
• It then models the course of the potential
epidemic as it spreads around the world.
 9. VirSim
• VirSim was developed to help support
policy making.
• Governments can decide on intervention
strategies, and lost work and hospitalization
effects on society are documented.
 10. University of South Florida
• The University of South Florida’s model
performs simulations for development of
dynamic mitigation strategies.
 Other Models
• Some other models include Georgia Tech’s,
The University of Western Australia’s, a
Biological Model for Influenza
Transmission, a model of Japan and an
Avian-human influenza epidemic model.
 Other Sources
• Additional sources are
PandemicSimulation.com, a pandemic
simulation community website, NPR, The
Scientist and MAA.
• See www.CatRisky.com for catastrophe risk
trends and news.
• Thank you!