Manuscript Topics

The dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the many failures in its mitigation, are suggestive of the lack of robust principles of epidemic control for comparing different intervention strategies. Optimal control tools have traditionally received scarce attention in standard public health modelling of communicable infections. Despite the COVID-19 period has witnessed a blow-up of papers applying optimal control methods to diverse interventions (e.g., social distancing, testing allocation, vaccine prioritization), the above distrust seems to persist. This special issue will bring together scholars from diverse fields to contribute original research advances in the use of optimal and robust control in the public health decision making on infectious diseases, with a specific focus on the role of behavioural dimensions. This can include:

• ex-post assessments of effectiveness of interventions against COVID-19
• offering insight for better preparedness plans against threatening epidemics
• providing rules for the practical public health implementation of optimal strategies
• deepening definition and measurement of societal costs of epidemics
• understanding barriers to optimal strategies including behavioural responses at different societal layers
• the role of heterogeneities/uncertainty and robust control
• applications to other infectious diseases (non-epidemic, STD, vector-borne) for which optimal strategies and behavioural dimensions may advance public health decision-making

All submitted manuscripts will be peer-reviewed and receive timely feedback

Keywords: Optimal and robust control; epidemic preparedness and mitigation; control principles; costs of communicable infections; non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI); vaccination; spontaneous behavioural responses; societal protection

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