A vision for estimation of the instantaneous reproductive number

IF 2.4 3区医学 Q2 INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Epidemics Pub Date : 2026-03-01 Epub Date: 2026-01-29 DOI:10.1016/j.epidem.2026.100885

Chad W. Milando , George G. Vega Yon , Kaitlyn Johnson , Alessandra Urbinati , Guillaume St-Onge , Brennan Klein , Anne Cori , Laura F. White , Rt Collabathon participants

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The reproductive number,

R_{t}

, is a popular metric used for monitoring infectious diseases.

R_{t}

describes the expected number of infections that will be generated from a single infection at time

t

, which maps nicely to the likelihood that disease incidence will increase, decrease, or remain constant in the near future. Although this metric has existed for decades, it became more widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic and there was a subsequent proliferation of new estimation methods and software tools. This rapid development of methods and tools presents many opportunities and challenges for users, researchers, and decision makers. In recognition of this growth, we convened a three-day “collabathon” in September 2024 to bring together researchers and public health practitioners to identify challenges and areas for future development in

R_{t}

estimation and to begin work in these areas. Here we provide a high-level summary of current methods and report on the findings from the collabathon, including a summary of current challenges and recommendations for future development, evaluation and interpretation of

R_{t}

查看原文本刊更多论文

一种估计瞬时繁殖数的方法。

繁殖数Rt是监测传染病的常用指标。Rt描述了在时间t时由一次感染产生的预期感染数，它很好地映射了疾病发病率在不久的将来增加、减少或保持不变的可能性。尽管这一指标已经存在了几十年，但在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，它得到了更广泛的使用，随后出现了新的估计方法和软件工具。这种方法和工具的快速发展为用户、研究人员和决策者提供了许多机会和挑战。为了认识到这一增长，我们于2024年9月召开了为期三天的“合作马拉松”，将研究人员和公共卫生从业人员聚集在一起，确定Rt估计的挑战和未来发展领域，并开始在这些领域开展工作。在这里，我们提供了当前方法的高层次总结，并报告了合作马拉松的结果，包括当前挑战的总结和对未来发展、评估和解释Rt的建议。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Epidemics INFECTIOUS DISEASES-

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

7.90%

发文量

审稿时长

140 days

期刊介绍： Epidemics publishes papers on infectious disease dynamics in the broadest sense. Its scope covers both within-host dynamics of infectious agents and dynamics at the population level, particularly the interaction between the two. Areas of emphasis include: spread, transmission, persistence, implications and population dynamics of infectious diseases; population and public health as well as policy aspects of control and prevention; dynamics at the individual level; interaction with the environment, ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, as well as population genetics of infectious agents.