Epidemiological Modelling in Humanitarian Crises: From Critical Insight to Public Health Action, with Ruwan Ratnayake

Epidemiology is a core tool for effective public health response during humanitarian crises. Increasingly, modern analytical methods, like mathematical modelling, have been added to the epidemiological toolbox to attempt to describe the epidemiology of communicable diseases, decipher disease transmission dynamics, and simulate promising public health interventions among crisis-affected populations.

Using the lenses of cholera response in crises and decolonial practices in global health, this seminar will explore the potential uses and challenges for modelling in crises to aid evidence generation and real-time decision-making.

Speaker Profile

Ruwan is a field epidemiologist and modeler with considerable experience in humanitarian crises. Currently, he works with colleagues at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to integrate the modelling of communicable disease, acute malnutrition, and excess mortality with traditional field epidemiology methods to provide insights that can hopefully drive public health actions in crises worldwide.

As a CIHR Doctoral Foreign Scholar, he completed a mid-career PhD in mathematical modelling at LSHTM, in collaboration with Epicentre-Médecins Sans Frontières, where he evaluated the effects of targeted interventions for cholera outbreaks using mathematical modeling and observational studies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Before this, Ruwan was the Senior Epidemiologist for the International Rescue Committee, where he supported health programs primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and for the Syria regional crisis. He also trained with the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program of the Public Health Agency of Canada. He published both research and public health guidance, including articles recently in The Lancet Infectious Diseases and guidelines for early warning surveillance systems in emergencies for the WHO.

Register below and join us on Wednesday, December 18, at 1 p.m. ET

RSVP