“Historical Epidemics, Novel Techniques: Using Historical and Ethnographic Materials to Build Computer Simulation Models”
by Carolyn Orban
(Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri)
Wednesday 07 August 2019
Anthropology lab, Department of Anthropology and Sociology
13h00-14h20
Abstract
In this talk, I will introduce my work using agent-based computer simulation models to study infectious disease among an indigenous Californian population in the early 19th century. I will discuss how an anthropological approach to building a disease model differs from more standard procedures used by epidemiologists and others in public health. I hope to have a discussion of the way that diverse data sources can be found and used in projects like these.
Carolyn Orban is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri. She is a medical anthropologist who is interested in the use of computer simulation and agent-based models to study infectious disease in past human populations. Currently, she is working on two projects, one examining the 1805/1806 measles epidemic at Mission San Diego de Alcala in San Diego, California. The other is tracking the temporal and geographic spread of the 1918 influenza pandemic in rural Missouri.
