Planning for infectious disease outbreaks: A geographic disease spread, clinic location, and resource allocation simulation

In the event of an outbreak of a highly contagious communicable disease, public health departments often open mass-vaccination or antiviral dispensing clinics to treat the infected population or reduce the further spread of disease. In this research, we have created a simulation of the disease spread process employing a SEIR compartmental model. The model includes employment patterns and separates the population into age groups and spatial location to more accurately describe disease spread behavior. The analysis involves measuring health-related performance as we change the number of days elapsing between clinic days. We open clinics in locations that maximize the infected population coverage subject to budget and resource-related constraints, using a MIP location-allocation model. An example case is provided in the context of an outbreak occurring in Wake County, NC. The simulation is coded in C++, using ILOG Concert Technology to implement the location-allocation model.