SPARKLE Training Course
Introduction
This course builds on introductory infectious disease modelling concepts and gives students practice adapting, fitting, and extending transmission models.
Sessions
Session 1: Recap of infectious disease modelling concepts
This first session refreshes compartmental modelling, reproduction numbers, and likelihoods. It includes hands-on activities translating between diagrams and equations, explaining model terms in words, interpreting effective reproduction number trajectories, and refitting a simpler model to simulated outbreak data.
Session 2: Adding age structure to SIR models
This session extends a basic SIR model to include age groups, age-specific susceptibility and infectiousness, and age-specific contact matrices. It keeps the theory light and uses guided coding activities so students can practise changing model assumptions and interpreting the resulting epidemic dynamics.