Infokiri

To: National Focal Points for Public Health Training (Members and Alternates)

CC: National Coordinators (Members and Alternates)

CC: Vicky Lefevre, Head of Unit Public Health Functions, ECDC

CC: Adam Roth, Head of Section Public Health Training, ECDC

CC: Jeanine Pommier, Group Leader Continuous Professional Development, ECDC

CC: country.cooperation@ecdc.europa.eu

Ref.: CS0005045

Dear Colleagues, 

ECDC is planning to organise this year’s Summer School on the topic of “Introduction to mathematical modelling for assessing and anticipating threats in public health”. The course will be delivered in person in English on 6-8 May 2025 in Rome, Italy at the premises of Istituto Superiore di Sanità.

This email is sent only for information purposes about the upcoming training activity.  No action is required at this stage from your side.

At the beginning of next week National Focal Points for Public Health Training – Members will receive an individual email from ‘ECDCEventNominations-noreply’ with the link to nominate participant(s) from each country and instructions on the nomination process.

Please find below more specific information about the training.

Overall aim

The overall aim of the course is to introduce the usage of mathematical modelling for assessing and anticipating threats in public health.

Learning objectives

The objectives of the course on mathematical modelling are to provide public health practitioners, that are not modellers, with knowledge to understand key concepts of mathematical modelling, the types of questions modelling can help decision makers with, general limitations of models (data, uncertainties, assumptions, etc.), and how to interpret and clearly communicate, in a non-scientific way, modelling results from publications and reports.

Mathematical modelling provides valuable tools for assessing and anticipating threats in public health and help public health decision making under uncertainty. Participants will learn key components and modelling concepts of infectious disease transmission and control, analyse an ECDC modelling output to interpret its modelling findings, and discuss how modelling informs policy making.

Target audience

This Summer School has been designed for public health practitioners interested in understanding, interpreting and utilising results and outputs of quantitative approaches from mathematical modelling to guide public health decision making.

The training is most useful for public health decision makers involved in planning of interventions and resource allocation, who interact with modelling outcomes and may benefit from understanding different quantitative methods for assessing the impact of interventions. Both specialists and generalists can benefit from the training.

Note that this training is not aimed for experts in mathematical modelling, and it does not aim to train modellers. As a step towards strengthening the capacity of countries, participants attending this course commit to cascading in their professional settings the knowledge gained during the course.

If you have any questions, please contact courses@ecdc.europa.eu.

Kind regards,

Vicky Lefevre

Head of Unit Public Health Functions