Applied Maths Seminar: Miller -- Ethical conflicts in infectious disease control

Joel Miller (Latrobe University) will be visiting us to give a seminar on Wed 4 Nov at
12pm in Carslaw 351.  

Title: Ethical conflicts in infectious disease control 

Abstract: The nature of infectious disease means that the choices and actions of
individuals impact the exposure risk of others.  Furthermore, behavioral and biological
heterogeneities in the population mean that the individuals or groups that play the
largest role in the spread of an epidemic may not be the same as those that are most
impacted by the epidemic.  Consequently the design of optimal infectious disease
interventions often leads inevitably to an ethical dilemma.  Mathematically, the
ethical dilemma is a Pareto-frontier: any choice requires deciding how much harm one
group should endure to reduce harm in another.  In this talk, I will use mathematical
modelling results to investigate a few examples of such dilemmas and discuss strategies
for modellers to use to give policy-makers information to decide how to balance the
impact of intervention and disease.