In this work, we study how environmental conditions, including meteorological and hydrological conditions, affect the ecology and epidemiology of infectious diseases and their vectors. Diseases studied include West Nile virus, malaria and influenza. We use both statistical and dynamical modeling approaches to explore how the transmission of these diseases is modulated by environmental conditions at a variety of time scales.
Funding for this work is provided by the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) program of the the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), previously in conjunction with the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard, as well as the NIH (NIGMS)/NSF (DMS) joint initiative to support research at the interface of the biological and mathematical sciences.