Seasonality and the population dynamics of infectious diseases

Seasonal variation takes many forms in the natural world. All of us notice the annual cycles in temperature, day length, and rainfall, and these have profound effects on rates of resource production and availability that plants and animals respond to in order to modify their reproduction and maintenance schedules. These regular cycles impose constraints and create opportunities for transmission of infectious diseases. Humans also superimpose seasonal processes onto their lives in a way that creates opportunities for infectious diseases; for example school semesters and annual vacations. This working group will examine the different ways in which seasonal variation in population size, contact rates and the survival of free-living infectious stages modifies the population dynamics of infectious diseases. The working group will bring together biologists, epidemiologists and mathematicians all of who have worked on different aspects of these problems. The workshop is particularly relevant to our understanding of the potential disease problems associated with climate change.