Ira Longini | |
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| Born | October 2, 1948 Cincinnati, Ohio |
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| Spouse | Amy Vigilante |
| Children | 2 |
Ira M. Longini (born October 2, 1948) is an American biostatistician [1] and infectious disease epidemiologist.
Ira Longini | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | October 2, 1948 Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse | Amy Vigilante |
| Children | 2 |
Ira M. Longini (born October 2, 1948) is an American biostatistician [1] and infectious disease epidemiologist.
Longini was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Biometry and Biomathematics at the University of Minnesota in 1977. He also received a MS in Statistics/Operations Research in 1973 and a BS, Engineering/Operations Research, from the University of Florida in 1971.[ citation needed ]
Longini began his career with the International Center for Medical Research and Training and the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, where he worked on tropical infectious disease problems and taught courses in biomathematics. Following that he was a professor of biostatistics at the University of Michigan, Emory University, [2] and the University of Washington. In 2014 he is a professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida and Co-Director of the Center for Statistical and Quantitative Infectious Diseases (CSQUID), the Emerging Pathogens Institute, at the University of Florida.
Longini studies stochastic processes applied to epidemiological problems. He has specialized in the mathematical and statistical theory of epidemics, which involves constructing and analyzing mathematical models of disease transmission, disease progression and the analysis of infectious disease data based on these models. He designs and analyses vaccine and infectious disease prevention trials and observational studies. He has worked on the analysis of epidemics of influenza, HIV, tuberculosis, cholera, dengue fever, malaria, rhinovirus, rotavirus, measles and other infectious agents.[ citation needed ]
Longini is also collaborating with the Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization, the CDC and other public health organizations on mathematical and statistical models for the control of a possible bioterrorist attack with an infectious agent such as smallpox, and other natural infectious disease threats such as pandemic influenza or another SARS-like infectious agent. [3]
Longini develops mathematical statistical methods to estimate the transmission and natural history of infectious diseases. These methods are then used to create mathematical models which predict infectious disease transmission [4] and indicate methods for control with vaccines and other measures. His work on HIV helped to develop an understanding of pathogenesis and progression of HIV, including how HIV is transmitted in different rates at different stages. This work contributed to the design HIV treatments and analysis of their effectiveness. Longini extensively studied the transmission and of pandemic and interpandemic influenza and its control with antiviral agents and vaccines.
Longini investigated how infectious diseases such as influenza, [5] cholera, typhoid and dengue could be controlled with vaccines. He has designed, analyzed and interpreted vaccine studies for many of these infectious diseases, taking into account the indirect protection that unvaccinated people receive in a population of vaccinated people. His work has helped to demonstrate how mass vaccination of school children helps to protect the entire community from influenza. This strategy is being implemented throughout the world, and could eventually lead to control of both pandemic and interpandemic influenza. [1]
Longini has won a number of awards for excellence in research, including the Howard M. Temin Award in Epidemiology for “Scientific Excellence in the Fight against HIV/AIDS,” two CDC Statistical Science Awards for both “Best Theoretical and Applied Papers,” and the CDC James H. Nakano Citation "for an outstanding scientific publications." He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[ citation needed ]
Longini is author or coauthor of more than 152 scientific papers and one book.
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
A zoonosis or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that can jump from a non-human to a human and vice versa.
An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.
In medicine, public health, and biology, transmission is the passing of a pathogen causing communicable disease from an infected host individual or group to a particular individual or group, regardless of whether the other individual was previously infected. The term strictly refers to the transmission of microorganisms directly from one individual to another by one or more of the following means:
Mathematical models can project how infectious diseases progress to show the likely outcome of an epidemic and help inform public health and plant health interventions. Models use basic assumptions or collected statistics along with mathematics to find parameters for various infectious diseases and use those parameters to calculate the effects of different interventions, like mass vaccination programs. The modelling can help decide which intervention(s) to avoid and which to trial, or can predict future growth patterns, etc.
Flu season is an annually recurring time period characterized by the prevalence of an outbreak of influenza (flu). The season occurs during the cold half of the year in each hemisphere. It takes approximately two days to show symptoms. Influenza activity can sometimes be predicted and even tracked geographically. While the beginning of major flu activity in each season varies by location, in any specific location these minor epidemics usually take about three weeks to reach its pinnacle, and another three weeks to significantly diminish.
An emergent virus is a virus that is either newly appeared, notably increasing in incidence/geographic range or has the potential to increase in the near future. Emergent viruses are a leading cause of emerging infectious diseases and raise public health challenges globally, given their potential to cause outbreaks of disease which can lead to epidemics and pandemics. As well as causing disease, emergent viruses can also have severe economic implications. Recent examples include the SARS-related coronaviruses, which have caused the 2002-2004 outbreak of SARS (SARS-CoV-1) and the 2019–21 pandemic of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Other examples include the human immunodeficiency virus which causes HIV/AIDS; the viruses responsible for Ebola; the H5N1 influenza virus responsible for avian flu; and H1N1/09, which caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Viral emergence in humans is often a consequence of zoonosis, which involves a cross-species jump of a viral disease into humans from other animals. As zoonotic viruses exist in animal reservoirs, they are much more difficult to eradicate and can therefore establish persistent infections in human populations.
Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), sometimes less precisely called immune enhancement or disease enhancement, is a phenomenon in which binding of a virus to suboptimal antibodies enhances its entry into host cells, followed by its replication. The suboptimal antibodies can result from natural infection or from vaccination. ADE may cause enhanced respiratory disease, but is not limited to respiratory disease. It has been observed in HIV, RSV virus and Dengue virus and is monitored for in vaccine development.
Economic epidemiology is a field at the intersection of epidemiology and economics. Its premise is to incorporate incentives for healthy behavior and their attendant behavioral responses into an epidemiological context to better understand how diseases are transmitted. This framework should help improve policy responses to epidemic diseases by giving policymakers and health-care providers clear tools for thinking about how certain actions can influence the spread of disease transmission.
Alessandro Vespignani is an Italian-American physicist, best known for his work on complex networks, and particularly for work on the applications of network theory to the mathematical modeling of infectious disease, applications of computational epidemiology, and for studies of the topological properties of the Internet. He is currently the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Computer Science and Health Sciences at Northeastern University, where he is the director of the Network Science Institute.
The Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI) is an interdisciplinary research institution associated with the University of Florida. The institute focuses on fusing key disciplines to develop outreach, education, and research capabilities designed to preserve the region's health and economy, as well as to prevent or contain new and re-emerging diseases. Researchers within the institute work in more than 30 different countries around the world, with over 250 affiliated faculty members stemming from 11 University of Florida colleges, centers, and institutes. The 90,000-square-foot building includes laboratories and collaborative space for bioinformatics and mathematical modeling.
In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It usually involves keeping a certain distance from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups.
Influenza prevention involves taking steps that one can use to decrease their chances of contracting flu viruses, such as the Pandemic H1N1/09 virus, responsible for the 2009 flu pandemic.
Viral phylodynamics is defined as the study of how epidemiological, immunological, and evolutionary processes act and potentially interact to shape viral phylogenies. Since the coining of the term in 2004, research on viral phylodynamics has focused on transmission dynamics in an effort to shed light on how these dynamics impact viral genetic variation. Transmission dynamics can be considered at the level of cells within an infected host, individual hosts within a population, or entire populations of hosts.
Mary Elizabeth (Betz) Halloran is an American biostatistician who works as a professor of biostatistics, professor of epidemiology, and adjunct professor of applied mathematics at the University of Washington.
Neil Morris Ferguson is a British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans and animals. He is the director of the Jameel Institute, and of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, and head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Vice-Dean for Academic Development in the Faculty of Medicine, all at Imperial College London.
Arnold Monto is an American physician and epidemiologist. At the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Monto is the Thomas Francis Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Health, professor of epidemiology, and professor of global public health. His research focuses on the occurrence, prevention, and treatment of infectious diseases in industrialized and developing countries' populations.
Lisa Sattenspiel is an anthropologist at the University of Missouri known for her work on infectious diseases, their spread and ecology. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Lone Simonsen is a Danish epidemiologist and professor of population health sciences. Since the beginning of 2020, she has been the director of PandemiX, an interdisciplinary pandemic research center at Roskilde University.
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