Ethical frameworks should be applied to computational modelling of infectious disease interventions

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Computational Modeling

Background:

• Epidemiological models are vital for infectious disease interventions but can have unintended consequences.
• Public health ethics recognizes trade-offs inherent in interventions, which models may overlook.
• Current infectious disease modeling often lacks explicit consideration of ethical frameworks and values.

Purpose of the Study:

• To improve epidemiological models by integrating public health ethics.
• To reduce unintended consequences of infectious disease interventions.
• To enhance ethical awareness and capacity within infectious disease modeling.

Main Methods:

• Review of public health and clinical ethics concepts.
• Analysis of COVID-19 pandemic examples to highlight the ethics-modeling gap.
• Proposal of public health ethics as a foundation for ethically aware modeling.

Main Results:

• Models risk overlooking ethical choices and values, increasing unintended consequences.
• Modellers' awareness of ethical frameworks can mitigate these risks.
• Public health ethics offers a conceptual basis for developing this capacity.

Conclusions:

• Explicitly accounting for ethical trade-offs in models is essential.
• Building capacity for ethically aware modeling requires interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Ethically aware modeling is critical for responsible public health interventions.