SACEMA Quarterly

Update on epidemiology for health professionals and policy makers.

Recent articles

Annette Gerritsen

Short item Published on June 24, 2018
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Modelling the evolution of influenza

On 18 April 2018, Venetia Karamitsou, PhD student in the Disease Dynamics group at the University of Cambridge, held a talk at SACEMA on modelling the evolution of influence. Given that vaccination is the main control strategy against influenza outbreaks, it is worrisome that influenza mutates often, making reinfection possible even for vaccinated individuals. Existing models regarding the evolution of influenza focus on either changes within hosts or between hosts. The main motivation behind the current research is to find out how both types of models can be combined. The results from the study can be useful in reassessing vaccination policies.

Short item Published on March 15, 2018
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5th SA TB Conference 2018 – late breaker session

The Conference theme: “STEP UP – Let’s embrace all to end TB!” provides a unique opportunity to reflect on what we have done across the entire spectrum of our programmes in response to TB, what has been effective and what not, what we need to do to find the missing cases and giving attention to Read More

Short item Published on March 10, 2016
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Update: Compensating miners for the burden of lung disease

In the SACEMA Quarterly of November 2015 we published an item from Alide Dasnois about compensating miners for the burden of lung disease. On 6 March 2016 City Press published an article titled “Silicosis claims: Anglo has to cough up nearly R500m” which reports on a first step in the process of paying the individual claims.

Short item Published on March 10, 2016
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Vacancies at SACEMA

SACEMA has currently several vacancies both at Masters and PhD level. SACEMA is looking to appoint up to two strong quantitative analysts into contract positions (deadline for application: 14 March 2016) and is also inviting applications from ambitious postdoctoral scientists to conduct high-impact statistical and dynamical modelling work in public health (applications on ongoing basis).

Short item Published on November 30, 2015
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Book review: Houston, We Have a Narrative

In the September 2015 SACEMA Quarterly, we published an editorial on the importance of interactive storytelling in epidemiology as well as a short on narratives and paradigms. When we came across a review of the book Houston, We Have a Narrative by Randy Olson, we thought that this would be interesting to share with you as well. The reviewer Rafael E. Luna is the author of The Art of Scientific Storytelling: Transform Your Research Manuscript with a Step-By-Step Formula.

Short item Published on September 15, 2015
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Short course on Bayesian analysis of longitudinal studies

Prof. Emmanuel Lesaffre of the Leuven Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics Centre, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, will be presenting an intensive course on Bayesian analysis of longitudinal studies on 26 and 27 November 2015 at Stellenbosch University. The course will be oriented towards an applied audience with a good knowledge of various regression models.

Short item Published on June 17, 2014
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Inaugural edition: Summer School Network Statistics In Health Research

Participants of this one-week summer school 2014 at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, will be introduced to the field of statistical analysis of network data, with an emphasis of model applications in health research. After a brief review of traditional compartmental (SIR) models and the methodology for classical descriptive network analysis, (static) Exponential family Random Graph Models (ERGMs) and dynamic temporal ERGMS will be introduced. Stochastic Actor Oriented Models (SAOMs) offer an alternative approach to model the evolution of a network, and the changes in actor attributes.

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