Census Data Aid Disease Simulation Studies

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100331141015.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2010) — Did you know that filling out your census card will help computer scientists model how diseases spread in the United States?

Over the last four years, researchers at RTI International in North Carolina have been transforming data from the 2000 census -- which described the country's 281 million people and 116 million households -- into a virtual U.S. population. They finished the "synthetic population" last year, and they plan to update it when the 2010 census results come out.

The scientists developed the synthetic population as part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) (http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Initiatives/MIDAS/) at the National Institutes of Health. By integrating the population into their computer models, MIDAS researchers can better simulate the spread of an infectious outbreak through a community and identify the best ways to intervene.

----- (skipping)

..