A Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) Methods Core Presentation
In collaboration with Don Des Jarlais and his team, Dr. Georgiy Bobashev developed an agent-based model (ABM) that describes the transmission of HIV in a population of people who inject drugs in NYC and Vietnam. They show that under general assumptions the transmission rate is very low, but small outbreaks are possible in tightly connected communities. In this presentation, Dr. Bobashev will discuss how ABMs can provide insight into disease transmission in complex systems where many factors are at play. Conducting multiple simulations allows us to focus not only on the means or most likely scenarios but at some rare but extreme cases leading to notable outbreaks.
Speaker Bio:
Georgiy Bobashev is a Senior Fellow at RTI International with more than 20 years of experience in health research. His current research interests follow two major areas: predictive modeling and studies of substance use and risky behaviors. Predictive methods often combine mechanistic (e.g., agent-based and system dynamics) and machine learning techniques. Dr. Bobashev has applied modeling, statistical analysis and experimental design to a variety of health- and policy-related areas, including substance use, HIV, child/maternal health, influenza, cancer, diabetes, and violent behavior. He has been a principal investigator and co-investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In addition to his RTI duties, Dr. Bobashev is an adjunct Professor at the Department of Statistics at North Carolina State University, adjunct Professor at the NYU School of Global Public Health, and a Professor at the Data Science Tech Institute in Sofia Antipolis, France.