David L. Rosen, MD, PhD, MSPH, an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases, says prevention and control of infectious disease outbreaks in carceral settings face unique challenges in a paper published in Science Direct.
Transmission modeling is a powerful tool for understanding and addressing these challenges, but reviews of modeling work in this context pre-date the proliferation of outbreaks in jails and prisons during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Rosen conducted a systematic review of studies using transmission models of respiratory infections in carceral settings, before and during the pandemic, searching PubMed, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. They identified studies published between 1970 and 2024 that modeled the transmission of respiratory infectious diseases in carceral settings.
Rosen and his team team extracted information on the diseases, populations, and settings modeled; approaches used for parameterizing models and simulating transmission; outcomes of interest and techniques for model calibration, validation, and sensitivity analyses; and types, impacts, and ethical aspects of modeled interventions.Increased attention to calibration, validation, and the practical and ethical aspects of intervention implementation could improve translation of model estimates into tangible benefits for the highly vulnerable populations in carceral settings.
Rosen is a member of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases.