Broad long-term goals of the proposed project are 1) to develop the first hierarchical dynamic model of human malaria, 2) to calibrate this model further through work with laboratory-based colleagues on parallel systems, and with field-based and clinic-based colleagues on analyses of longitudinal studies, and 3) to use the resulting model to aid in predicting and evaluating effects of proposed interventions in malaria dynamics.
Specific aims are 1) during the first 18 months, to develop major extensions of models within the general scheme of separate individual-level and population-level models, and, 2) during the last 18 months, to meet two further challenges: developing a new form of individual-level model that encompasses diverse phenomena on multiple time scales, and deciding on the best method for nesting individual- level models within fully integrated population-level models, to produce a hierarchical dynamic model capable of addressing the wide range of interacting individual-level and population-level phenomena in human malaria. Each of the specific tasks targets a critical but poorly- understood aspect of parasitological and immunological dynamics in individual-level, clinically-related phenomena or of parasitological, immunological and transmission dynamics in population-level, epidemiologically-related phenomena.
