Königsweg 67
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 56034
epi@vetmed.fu-berlin.de
Based on mathematical models of infectious diseases, we want to provide risk assessment functionality to potential users via responsive website (free of charge, open licensed) for both individuals and professionals in Poland. We have created risk calculators for human diseases such as sexual transmitted infections (http://interdisciplinaryresearch.eu/index.php/ankieta) as well as hospital infections (http://platforma.sirsz.pl/ankieta/zak/) for clients and patients and we are currently developing ASFV (African Swine Fever Virus) arrival time estimator for farmers (http://interdisciplinaryresearch.eu/index.php/asf). The results of calculations are presented ‘real-time’ to interested users in percentage of chance (or time) as well as with a meaningful description. End user fills the form to obtain risk assessment and can test different settings to learn the overall risk. Questions have been chosen by literature review and database analysis and translated into quantitative and qualitative variables. The algorithms process data from questionnaires by applying mathematical modelling: i) to assess risk of acquiring hospital infection during child delivery, tree logistic regression is applied; ii) to assess risk of sexually transmitted infections during sexual intercourse (currently only for HIV), Bayesian inference is used; iii) to estimate most likely arrival times of ASFV and most likely introduction paths to disease free area, quasi-gravity propagation model is proposed. We have already compared in a pilot study the actual risk (according to our algorithms) against risk perception both in professionals and a patient cohort in a child delivery case. Unexpectedly, there was no difference in the average standard error (absolute difference between actual risk and perception of the risk in %) between both cohorts. However, variance of the standard error was significantly lower in professionals than in the patient cohort, because patients had tendency to over/under estimate risk in much larger extend. Concluding, the idea is to give some functionality of epidemiological intelligence (already developed for stakeholders) to farmers or patients as an educational tool, must be carefully implemented. On one hand, user receives risk assessment from interactive web application with additional description about modifiable risk factors and can benefit from evidence based knowledge and recent guidelines. On the other hand, such a tool can objectivise the relation patient – doctor/farmer – veterinarian and in some circumstances can even harm a user.