Optimal control of birth–death processes, with applications to epidemic surveillance

Naama Meira Kopelman, Rami Yaari, Amit Huppert and Yakir Berchenko ()
Additional contact information
Naama Meira Kopelman: Holon Institute of Technology
Rami Yaari: The Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, Sheba Medical Center
Amit Huppert: Data and Analytics Division, Sheba Medical Center
Yakir Berchenko: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Annals of Operations Research, 2025, vol. 353, issue 3, No 14, 1287-1303

Abstract: Abstract Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases continue to be a major threat to human health, and a threat to economic and financial stability worldwide. Epidemiological models have proven to be important tools for informing decisions on optimal policies, interventions, and control measures. However, the importance of surveillance and early detection is often overlooked, and the focus on control measures is mostly in terms of existing infections. In this work we present a framework for deciding on the optimal surveillance scheme that will minimize the overall cost of a disease, balancing the costs pertaining to surveys for early detection with other disease-related costs prior to detection. We show that the expected cost can be fully described for a general case of a stationary policy, thus supporting informed decision making between a few (fixed) strategies. In addition, we show that for time-dependent monitoring policies, the optimal policy is a bang-bang policy, whereby resources should be utilized for monitoring only after a critical time-point, to the maximum extent possible.

Keywords: Birth–death processes; Optimal control; Birth–death-catastrophe; Epidemic surveillance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-025-06782-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:annopr:v:353:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10479-025-06782-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1007/s10479-025-06782-7

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().