Project Description

The Outbreak Response Simulator is an agent-based infectious disease simulation model that gives the user the ability to test a range of response scenarios and planning strategies for infectious disease outbreaks. The project is being developed as a thesis project at Harvard University Graduate School of Design in the Masters in Design Studies Program.

The primary intention of the project is to develop a research tool with academic and professional purposes to study infectious disease outbreaks and responses efforts geospatially. Simulation models already play an integral role in monitoring and responding to infectious disease outbreaks, but are deficient in spatial and visual considerations. This project will strive to advocate and create a platform for testing the spatial importance in outbreak response. The model tests the capacities of existing healthcare facilities in outbreaks, but also tests the placement and capacities of temporary and emergency facilities, such as isolation and treatment units.

The model not only displays real time data of the outbreak, it has a built-in feature being developed that captures the data outputs for each simulation to allow users to compare the results of one simulation against an array of other simulations. The scale and scope of the model is being developed at a regional level, but it has the potential to be scaled down to the neighborhood level or up to a national, or international level.

Once complete, the model is intended to work with multiple layers of data such as land use, transportation, environmental, population density, existing healthcare capacity and specific disease characteristics. The user interface is meant to be user friendly and easily understandable for designers, public health professionals, policy makers, and humanitarians.

The project is being developed by Michael de St. Aubin, a 2018 masters candidate in the Master in Design Studies Risk and Resilience program at the GSD. The project has largely spun out of the course GSD 6349 Mapping II : Geosimulation taught by Professor Robert Gerard Pietrusko with assisstance from Zeerak Ahmed and Renia Kagkou.