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This book is primarily a self-study text for those who want to learn about mathematical modelling concepts in the area of infectious diseases. It is therefore of most interest to applied mathematicians, epidemiologists and theoretical biologists, although others may find some of the content of interest. The book takes a very hands-on approach to learning. Each of its ten chapters are littered with examples and exercises, all of which are aimed at reinforcing the concepts introduced. The book is split into two halves—the first half is the main portion of the text that contains all of the theory and exercises, whilst the second half is the elaborations (outline solutions) to the exercises. Personally, I feel that this structure makes for the ideal use of the book as a self-study text since one can work through it chapter by chapter, using the elaborations as and when necessary to help overcome any difficulties that may be encountered. The book begins with a very general introduction to epidemic modelling and starts off with the simplest ideas of an epidemic in a closed population, before moving onto heterogeneity and investigations into the dynamics of these mathematical models in a number of realistic settings. The second section of the book takes the basic model and extends it in numerous ways to cover the many real-life situations that are faced by practitioners in the field. It covers concepts such as the basic reproduction number (R0), incorporating age structure, the spatial spread of disease, macroparasites and some of the issues surrounding contact (or in simplistic terms—where infection transmission would occur). Each chapter is also complete with appropriate references to research papers and other books that will provide further details on the concepts being discussed. Although it may be claimed that the book only gives a very general overview to this field, I have found this to be one of the best beginners' guides to mathematical epidemiology. It is certainly far better than any of the more traditional texts in this field for the novice reader—I thought that the set of selected further reading towards the end of the book would be a very useful source for the enthusiastic reader. In summary, I found this a very well-written book, which will be useful to a wide range of people who are interested in this field. It is well organised and contains suitable reference material as well as a considerable range of exercises.
Andrew Roddam (Thu,) studied this question.