Research on Geographic Modeling of Infectious Diseases

As part of a large NIH-funded interdisciplinary team, MPRC faculty associate Catherine Dibble (Geography) brings her expertise as a geographer to modeling the spread of infectious disease in the U.S. Dibble is specifically interested in predicting how the introduction of mutated Avian Flu in the U.S. could be transmitted in humans. Her interest is in how it would spread spatially and how, with limited resources, public health officials could optimally respond.

UMD GeoGraph Lab

Using agent-based modeling, Dibble simulates the introduction of an airborne disease with the likely virulence of Avian Flu using the actual transportation hubs in place in the U.S. today. The challenge of this work is that many of the parameters such as the virulence of the disease, the point of entry and the behavioral responses to the disease are unknown. Instead of depending on one set of parameters, Dibble conducts two kinds of analyses. First, she solves for the optimal intervention across cities under a wide variety of parameters. As it turns out, a recommendation of intervening in large cities regardless of the entry point of the disease holds under a wide variety of circumstances to both minimize the expected number of deaths and minimize the chances of a pandemic. Dibble also develops fast algorithms that would allow the model to be run in real time as a disease spreads, and parameters to be adjusted to support decision making as information on the spread of the disease is accumulated.

Status, Inequality, Stress and Health Among Older People

MPRC faculty associates Joan Kahn (Sociology), Melissa Milkie (Sociology) and Leonard Pearlin (Sociology) continue long-term research on status-related stressors across the life course and their effects on health and health inequalities among older adults in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The project received funding from NIA to add two interviews to the three already conducted in years 2000-2004. This work finds that differences in the exposure to stressors (past and present), and in the social, personal, and material protective resources are among the conditions shaping health trajectories and contributing to health disparities among older adults (Journal of Social Behavior). Additional interviews will enrich the study by yielding greater heterogeneity in health trajectories than what could be obtained with the previous data.

Work, Stress and Health Project Site

In another project, Pearlin collaborates with MPRC faculty affiliate Scott Schieman (University of Toronto) to study the relationship between anger at work and the effect on physical health. Schieman’s pilot study for this NIH-funded project was initially funded by MPRC’s Seed Grant Program.