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Use of Mathematical Models of Chlamydia Transmission to Address Public Health Policy Questions

2017

This review provides an overview of chlamydia transmission models and offers perspective on how mathematical modeling has responded over time to additional empirical evidence in order to address policy questions related to prevention of chlamydia infection. The authors reviewed published chlamydia models to understand the range of approaches used for policy analyses and how the studies have responded to developments in the field.

The authors identified 47 publications reporting on 29 mathematical models through a Medline and Google Scholar literature review designed to identify publications describing dynamic chlamydia transmission models used to address public health policy questions. Nine models were individual-based, and 20 were deterministic compartmental models.

After extracting information on methodology, interventions, and key findings, the authors reported that while early studies evaluated national screening programs and predicted large benefits from increased screening, later modeling analyses suggested these may have been overestimates. Behavioral interventions were not widely modeled, but partner notification was evaluated in numerous studies.

 

Source:

Rönn MM, Wolf EE, Chesson H et al. The Use of Mathematical Models of Chlamydia Transmission to Address Public Health Policy Questions: A Systematic Review. Sexually Transmitted Diseases 2017; 44 (5): 278-283. https://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/Fulltext/2017/05000/The_Use_of_Mathematical_Models_of_Chlamydia.5.aspx