Opportunities and challenges of Integral Projection Models for modeling host-parasite dynamics

Epidemiological dynamics are shaped by and may in turn shape host demography. These feedbacks can result in hard to predict patterns of disease incidence. Mathematical models that integrate infection and demography are consequently a key tool for informing expectations for disease burden and identifying effective measures for control. A major challenge is capturing the details of infection within individuals and quantifying their downstream impacts to understand population-scale outcomes. For example, parasite loads and antibody titres may vary over the course of an infection and contribute to differences in transmission at the scale of the population. To date, to capture these subtleties, models have mostly relied on complex mechanistic frameworks, discrete categorization and/or agent-based approaches. Integral Projection Models (IPMs) allow variance in individual trajectories of quantitative traits and their population-level outcomes to be captured in ways that directly reflect statis...