IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2013.301704_9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unraveling R0: Considerations for public health applications

Author

Listed:
  • Ridenhour, B.
  • Kowalik, J.M.
  • Shay, D.K.

Abstract

We assessed public health use of R0, the basic reproduction number, which estimates the speed at which a disease is capable of spreading in a population. These estimates are of great public health interest, as evidenced during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic. We reviewed methods commonly used to estimate R0, examined their practical utility, and assessed how estimates of this epidemiological parameter can inform mitigation strategy decisions. In isolation, R0 is a suboptimal gauge of infectious disease dynamics across populations; other disease parameters may provide more useful information. Nonetheless, estimation of R0 for a particular population is useful for understanding transmission in the study population. Considered in the context of other epidemiologically important parameters, the value of R 0 may lie in better understanding an outbreak and in preparing a public health response.

Suggested Citation

  • Ridenhour, B. & Kowalik, J.M. & Shay, D.K., 2014. "Unraveling R0: Considerations for public health applications," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(2), pages 32-41.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2013.301704_9
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301704
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301704
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301704?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Avery & William Bossert & Adam Clark & Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2020. "Policy Implications of Models of the Spread of Coronavirus: Perspectives and Opportunities for Economists," NBER Working Papers 27007, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jude Dzevela Kong & Edward W Tekwa & Sarah A Gignoux-Wolfsohn, 2021. "Social, economic, and environmental factors influencing the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 across countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Gilgur, Alexander & Ramirez-Marquez, Jose Emmanuel, 2022. "Modeling mobility, risk, and pandemic severity during the first year of COVID," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Na, Jiaming & Tibebu, Haileleol & De Silva, Varuna & Kondoz, Ahmet & Caine, Michael, 2020. "Probabilistic approximation of effective reproduction number of COVID-19 using daily death statistics," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    5. Christopher Avery & William Bossert & Adam Thomas Clark & Glenn Ellison & Sara Ellison, 2020. "Policy Implications of Models of the Spread of Coronavirus: Perspectives and Opportunities for Economists," CESifo Working Paper Series 8293, CESifo.
    6. Qasim Bukhari & Joseph M. Massaro & Ralph B. D’Agostino & Sheraz Khan, 2020. "Effects of Weather on Coronavirus Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-12, July.
    7. Mark C. Quigley & Januka Attanayake & Andrew King & Fabian Prideaux, 2020. "A multi-hazards earth science perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic: the potential for concurrent and cascading crises," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 199-215, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2013.301704_9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.