EpiModel

EpiModel is an open‑source software package for mathematical modeling of infectious disease dynamics, implemented in the R programming language. It is designed to help researchers, educators, and public health practitioners build, simulate, and analyze both compartmental and network-based epidemic models in a transparent and reproducible way.

The package supports a range of modeling approaches, including traditional compartmental models such as SIR, SIS, and SEIR, as well as network-based simulations that capture person-to-person contact structure. Users can run deterministic simulations based on differential equations or stochastic simulations that incorporate randomness in transmission and recovery processes. EpiModel also provides facilities for constructing and manipulating contact networks, including dynamic networks that change over time, which enables modeling of interventions, behavior change, and network disruption.

Typical workflows involve defining a population, selecting a model type (compartmental or network), specifying parameters for transmission and recovery, and configuring interventions or scenarios. The package then runs simulations over a specified time horizon and produces outputs such as time series of incidence and prevalence, cumulative cases, and summary statistics. In addition, EpiModel offers visualization tools and data structures that support downstream analysis and comparison across scenarios.

EpiModel is part of the broader R ecosystem for epidemiology and network analysis, designed to be interoperable with related packages. It is widely used in academic research, public health planning, and classroom settings to explore fundamental questions about disease spread, control strategies, and the impact of network structure on epidemic dynamics.