Research at the RIVM unit for Modelling of Infectious Diseases addresses questions of public health relevance. The unit assesses the degree of protection of the general population against outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infections, and conducts scenario analyses to inform the national pandemic preparedness plans. It reports to public health policy-makers at the ministries and to the Health Council of the Netherlands.
Answering public health questions often requires the development of new methods. Most projects aimed at developing these methods are funded by external sources. Focus areas include:
- the optimisation of infection control measures;
- the use of social contact data in infectious disease models;
- the combination of molecular data of pathogens and case notification data, to unravel possible transmission routes in the population.
The development of such methods helps us quantify the potential and realised impact of control measures on the transmission of pathogens.
In each modelling project, we collaborate with epidemiologists, microbiologists and other experts on the relevant themes of RIVM research on infectious diseases.
