Integrating human behaviour and epidemiological modelling: unlocking the remaining challenges

When faced with health crises like disease outbreaks or pandemics, scientists have struggled to accurately predict how they will spread. One issue is that models of how infections spread in the population do not usually consider how people behave.
We call models that include both how infections spread and behaviour “epidemiological-behavioural” models. To improve these models we need experts from different research areas to work together. These teams include (but are not limited to) scientists who study human behaviour, medical and biological experts, and those who analyse data and who work with mathematical models.
Our article is by organisers and presenters at a workshop on “Mathematical modelling of behaviour to inform policy for societal challenges” hosted at the University of Warwick Mathematics Institute on 10 June 2024. This workshop had participation from behavioural scientists, data scientists, statisticians and mathematical modellers. We state the current challenges we face in creating teams with experts from different research areas and to produce “epidemiological-behavioural” models. We suggest ways to overcome these challenges and outline potential impacts and benefits to society once these challenges are unlocked.