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. 2016 Jan 28;11(1):e0146600.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146600. eCollection 2016.

The Biosurveillance Analytics Resource Directory (BARD): Facilitating the Use of Epidemiological Models for Infectious Disease Surveillance

Kristen J Margevicius  1 , Nicholas Generous  1 , Esteban Abeyta  1 , Ben Althouse  2 , Howard Burkom  3 , Lauren Castro  1 , Ashlynn Daughton  1 , Sara Y Del Valle  1 , Geoffrey Fairchild  1 , James M Hyman  4 , Richard Kiang  5 , Andrew P Morse  6   7 , Carmen M Pancerella  8 , Laura Pullum  9 , Arvind Ramanathan  9 , Jeffrey Schlegelmilch  10 , Aaron Scott  11 , Kirsten J Taylor-McCabe  1 , Alessandro Vespignani  12 , Alina Deshpande  1
Affiliations

The Biosurveillance Analytics Resource Directory (BARD): Facilitating the Use of Epidemiological Models for Infectious Disease Surveillance

Kristen J Margevicius et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Epidemiological modeling for infectious disease is important for disease management and its routine implementation needs to be facilitated through better description of models in an operational context. A standardized model characterization process that allows selection or making manual comparisons of available models and their results is currently lacking. A key need is a universal framework to facilitate model description and understanding of its features. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has developed a comprehensive framework that can be used to characterize an infectious disease model in an operational context. The framework was developed through a consensus among a panel of subject matter experts. In this paper, we describe the framework, its application to model characterization, and the development of the Biosurveillance Analytics Resource Directory (BARD; http://brd.bsvgateway.org/brd/), to facilitate the rapid selection of operational models for specific infectious/communicable diseases. We offer this framework and associated database to stakeholders of the infectious disease modeling field as a tool for standardizing model description and facilitating the use of epidemiological models.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Model characterization framework that includes 6 major components.
Fig 2
Fig 2. BARD models developed for a particular biosurveillance goal for a specific disease
Fig 3
Fig 3. Types of models in the BARD
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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