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Stochastic Variation In Network Epidemic Models: Implications For The Design Of Community Level Hiv Prevention Trials, David Boren, Patrick Sullivan, Chris Beyrer, Stefan Baral, Linda-Gail Becker, Ron Brookmeyer

Ron Brookmeyer

Important sources of variation in the spread of HIV in communities arise from overlapping sexual networks and heterogeneity in biological and behavioral risk factors in populations. These sources of variation are not routinely accounted for in the design of HIV prevention trials. In this paper, we use agent based models to account for these sources of variation. We illustrate the approach with an agent based model for the spread of HIV infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) in South Africa. We find that traditional sample size approaches that rely on binomial (or Poisson) models are inadequate and …