Data from: The basic-reproduction number of infectious diseases in spatially structured host populations

The spatial structure of a host population has a profound effect on the
dynamics of infectious diseases. The basic reproduction number, a central
quantity in the study of epidemic dynamics, is affected by host clustering
as well as host density. Several authors have developed methods to
quantify the basic reproduction number in a spatially structured host
population. The methods used and the expressions derived are however
difficult to apply to real life spatial host structures. In this paper we
introduce an explicit expression for the basic reproduction number using
the O-ring statistic, developed in spatial statistics, that quantifies the
host density as a function of the distance from a randomly selected host
individual. The O-ring statistic is frequently used in the study of the
ecology of spatially structured plant populations, being a convenient
summary of the properties of a landscape by way of a single function. The
connection we develop between spatial statistics and epidemic dynamics can
be used to study the effect of host spatial pattern on the basic
reproduction number of infectious diseases. As well as showing how
explicit expressions for the basic reproduction number can be derived for
landscapes with standard structures, our expression for the basic
reproduction number is tested against a simulation model. The model
structure in our simulation is motivated by the spread of a plant disease
epidemic, although it is applicable more broadly. The agreement between
our analytic expression for the basic reproduction number and the
corresponding numeric quantity extracted from simulations is close to
perfect across a wide range of landscape structures and model
parameterisations, and including cases in which more than one species of
host is at risk of infection.