Aligning simulation models of smallpox outbreaks

Abstract. We aligned two fundamentally different models of smallpox trans-mission after a bioterrorist attack: A location-explicit multi-agent model (Bio-War) and the conventional epidemiological box model, called a SIR model for Susceptible-Infected-Recovered. The purpose of this alignment is part of a greater validation process for BioWar. From this study we were able to contrib-ute to the overall validation of the complex agent based model, showing that, at the minimum, the epidemiological curves produced by the two models were ap-proximately equivalent, both in overall and the time course of infection and mortality. Subtle differences on the model results revealed the impact of het-erogeneous mixing in the spread of smallpox. Based on this foundation, we will be able to further investigate the policy responses against the outbreaks of con-tagious diseases by improving heterogeneous properties of agents, which cannot be simulated in a SIR model.