Extracting Data from Disparate Sources for Agent-Based Disease Spread Models

This paper presents a review and evaluation of real data sources relative to their role and applicability in an agent-based model (ABM) simulating respiratory infection spread a large geographic area. The ABM is a spatial-temporal model inclusive of behavior and interaction patterns between individual agents. The agent behaviours in the model (movements and interactions) are fed by census/demographic data, integrated with real data from a telecommunication service provider (cellular records), traffic survey data, as well as person-person contact data obtained via a custom 3G smartphone application that logs Bluetooth connectivity between devices. Each source provides data of varying type and granularity, thereby enhancing the robustness of the model. The work demonstrates opportunities in data mining and fusion and the role of data in calibrating and validating ABMs. The data become real-world inputs into susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (SEIR) disease spread models and their variants, thereby building credible and nonintrusive models to qualitatively model public health interventions at the population level.