CHERMID has extensive expertise in health economics, biostatistics and mathematical models, with currently 14 researchers trained in economics, medicine, mathematics, statistics, informatics, physics, biology and engineering. CHERMID conducts both conceptual-methodological and applied research.
Research in health economics includes: (1) estimating the economic impact of infectious diseases; (2) societal preferences for health care prioritization; (3) QALY estimation in children and their caregivers; (4) identifying determinants of medical consumption (especially antibiotics); (5) acknowledging uncertainty in decision analytical models. Applications include mostly infectious diseases such as: varicella-zoster virus, seasonal and pandemic influenza, rotavirus, pneumococcus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, pertussis, measles, polio and dengue. We also undertook ad-hoc applied research for non-infectious disease in diverse fields of medicine, such as pediatrics, cardiology, dermatology, nephrology, hematology and psychiatry.
CHERMID furthermore researches modelling challenges such as: (1) integrating between-host transmission and within-host immunological dynamics in models; (2) demonstrating model fit and validity of compartmental, network and individual-based dynamic transmission models (IBM) ; (3) Computational optimisation of IBMs; (4) estimating social mixing patterns relevant to infectious disease transmission; (5) real time analysis of outbreak data. Applications of such studies cover seasonal and pandemic influenza, rotavirus, pneumococcus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, human papillomavirus, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella-zoster virus, parvovirus B19, cytomegalovirus, malaria, HIV, ebola and dengue.