Spatial epidemiology of networked metapopulation: An overview

Lin WANG; Xiang Li

Recently, the good, the bad and the ugly facts of the Big Data have triggered extensive debates around the world. The interdisciplinary research of metapopulation epidemiology establishes a paradigm for the study of data science, since one remarkable progress in this field is the innovative usage of fine-grained data in verifying key assumptions and in establishing model substrates. Technical developments in the data collection, processing and analysis not only offer key insights into the dynamical properties of human mobility infrastructures as well as human behavioral diversity, but also raise new questions referring to their influences on the spatial transmission of emerging infectious diseases. Such methodology can be applied to study diverse types of contagion phenomena, including the spreading of computer viruses, information, innovations, emotion, behavior, crisis, culture, etc.