SPARSEMODr: Rapid simulations of spatially explicit and stochastic models of infectious disease

Mihaljevic, J. R.; Borkovec, S.; Ratnavale, S.; Hocking, T. D.; Banister, K. E.; Eppinger, J. E.; Hepp, C. M.; Doerry, E.

1. Simulating the dynamics of realistically complex models of infectious disease is conceptually challenging and computationally expensive. This results in a heavy reliance on customized software and, correspondingly, lower reproducibility across disease modeling studies. 2. SPARSEMOD stands for SPAtial Resolution-SEnsitive Models of Outbreak Dynamics. The goal of our project, encapsulated by the SPARSEMODr R package, is to offer a framework for rapidly simulating the dynamics of stochastic and spatially-explicit models of infectious disease for use in pedagogical and applied contexts. 3. We outline the universal functions of our package that allow for user-customization while demonstrating the common work flow. 4. SPARSEMODr offers an extendable framework that should allow the open-source community of disease modelers to add new model types and functionalities in future releases.