TUESDAY, February 28 in Williams 323 at 4pm
The Department of Mathematics is proud to welcome back Erin Solfiell, '05, from North Carolina State University to share her research in a talk entitled:
Cost Benefit Analysis for Vaccination Strategies of the HIV Virus
When considering a possible vaccination strategy one objective it to determine the best way to administer the vaccine to the society to advance the quality of life for those infected while also minimizing the monetary cost to the society.
Controlling the spread of the HIV virus is a serious problem that has affected multiple societies of varying demographics for decades. Recently there has been medical advancements encouraging the possibility of the development of an FDA approved vaccine for the HIV virus. Therefore it is important to analyze the economic evaluation of various strategies to distribute a vaccine to the infected populations. To be able to analyze the economic evaluation of various strategies there must first be effective cost benefit analysis for each comparative strategy. As mentioned one means for cost benefit analysis is the question of increasing quality of life while minimizing monetary cost, both increasing functions dependent on the amount of vaccine available. In the field of mathematics, optimal control theory provides a means for evaluating an optimal outcome by determining the most effective way to influence a dynamical system to maximize or minimize an objective functional. For the HIV epidemic, the dynamical system used is a system of ODEs that interpret a compartmental model characterizing the society affected by the spread of the disease between individuals while also accounting for varying infectivity rates as the disease develops. How these dynamics develop over time will govern the output of the cost functional, which will be defined as a convex combination of the two object functionals, for which the focus will be to minimize. Thus having control of the vaccine strategy we can use the advancements of mathematics to reduce the infection rate of the HIV virus with the hopes to provide a more reasonable living environment for everyone.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact David Brown at dabrown@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-7375. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20120225122030888