55  Introduction

In this module, we interactively work through the process of designing a network-based infectious disease model, with the starting example of HIV and interventions for HIV prevention. We conceptually discuss the steps to thinking through how to design a module or component process within a larger model. Our motivating intervention example will be HIV testing/screening.

This module is deliberately code-free: it is about the design thinking that comes before implementation, decomposing a research question into the states, modules, attributes, and network structure that Module 9’s API then builds. The slides work the HIV testing example through the six questions we will reuse throughout; the Designing a Model for Your Research Question chapter then turns those questions into a small-group exercise, where you split by disease area (zoonotic, HIV and STIs, or respiratory) and build a model of your own from the ground up.

55.1 Slides

55.2 Module Learning Objectives

• Decompose a research question into an EpiModel model design: its states, processes (modules), attributes, and network structure.
• Work conceptually through designing an HIV model and an HIV testing/screening intervention as the running example, using the six questions asked of every model addition.
• Map each design decision back to the module of the course that taught how to build it, from networks and their parameterization through open populations, nodal-attribute change, module building, and multilayer networks.
• Judge where network modeling applies beyond STIs and where it does not, and connect a paper design to its code realization through the EpiModel Gallery.
• In a small group organized by disease area, design a model from the ground up for both an etiological and an intervention question, then share it with the class.