Applied Mathematics Commons^™

Mathematical Models Of Infection Prevention Programs In Hospital Settings, Kelly A. Reagan

Theses and Dissertations

Hospitals play a vital role in providing for the healthcare needs of a community. Patients can develop hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) during their hospitalization due to exposure to foreign bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Infection prevention programs target and reduce HAIs, but implementing the infection prevention programs often comes with a cost. The goal of my research is to use mathematical models to quantify the impact of infection prevention programs on cases of HAIs and total healthcare costs. First, I use a Markov chain model to quantify how one infection prevention program reduces general HAIs in the hospital. Then, I calculate the …

The Role Of Mathematical Modeling In Designing And Evaluating Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs, Lester Caudill, Joanna R. Wares

Department of Math & Statistics Faculty Publications

Antimicrobial agent effectiveness continues to be threatened by the rise and spread of pathogen strains that exhibit drug resistance. This challenge is most acute in healthcare facilities where the well-established connection between resistance and sub-optimal antimicrobial use has prompted the creation of antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs). Mathematical models offer tremendous potential for serving as an alternative to controlled human experimentation for assessing the effectiveness of ASPs. Models can simulate controlled randomized experiments between groups of virtual patients, some treated with the ASP measure under investigation, and some without. By removing the limitations inherent in human experimentation, including health risks, study …

Multistrain Infections In Metapopulations, Sydney Garmer, Rachel Lynn, Dan Rossi, Alex Capaldi

Alex Capaldi

Mathematical Aids Epidemic Model: Preferential Anti-Retroviral Therapy Distribution In Resource Constrained Countries, Nadia Abuelezam

HMC Senior Theses

HIV/AIDS is one of the largest health problems the world is currently facing. Even with anti-retroviral therapies (ART), many resource-constrained countries are unable to meet the treatment needs of their infected populations. ART-distribution methods need to be created that prevent the largest number of future HIV infections. We have developed a compartment model that tracks the spread of HIV in multiple two-sex populations over time in the presence of limited treatment. The model has been fit to represent the HIV epidemic in rural and urban areas in Uganda. With the model we examine the spread of HIV among urban and …

Optimal Therapy Regimens For Treatment-Resistant Mutations Of Hiv, Weiqing Gu, Helen Moore

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

In this paper, we use control theory to determine optimal treatment regimens for HIV patients, taking into account treatment-resistant mutations of the virus. We perform optimal control analysis on a model developed previously for the dynamics of HIV with strains of various resistance to treatment (Moore and Gu, 2005). This model incorporates three types of resistance to treatments: strains that are not responsive to protease inhibitors, strains not responsive to reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and strains not responsive to either of these treatments. We solve for the optimal treatment regimens analytically and numerically. We find parameter regimes for which optimal dosing …

A Mathematical Model For Treatment-Resistant Mutations Of Hiv, Helen Moore, Weiqing Gu

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

In this paper, we propose and analyze a mathematical model, in the form of a system of ordinary differential equations, governing mutated strains of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and their interactions with the immune system and treatments. Our model incorporates two types of resistant mutations: strains that are not responsive to protease inhibitors, and strains that are not responsive to reverse transcriptase inhibitors. It also includes strains that do not have either of these two types of resistance (wild-type virus) and strains that have both types. We perform our analysis by changing the system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to …