Support the Risky Science Podcast by becoming a Risk Market News paid subscriber.
In the latest episode of the Risky Science Podcast, Dr. Neil Ferguson, Director of the Jameel Institute and Professor at Imperial College London, discusses the evolution of epidemiological modeling and why its role in public health and in private markets continues to grow.
Dr. Ferguson, widely known for his early COVID-19 modeling, reflects on how the field has evolved from a loosely defined social science into a more formal and applied discipline.
[Twenty-five years ago], infectious disease modeling was a bit like the way macroeconomists do modeling—it was a rhetorical tool for illustrating particular hypotheses and not rigorously calibrated against data. That has fundamentally changed, and that's driven a lot of the applications of models.
But that progress has come with complications. Models that were once internal tools for governments and researchers now operate under intense political and cultural scrutiny, particularly when they influence decisions with major economic and social impacts. But Ferguson cautions against the common misconception that models are meant to produce definitive forecasts.
Epidemiological modeling is not necessarily used to predict risks, but to understand transmission patterns and to inform policymaking.
The next leap in epidemiological modeling could come from AI—particularly generative models. Ferguson points to research from Google's DeepMind that shows AI can learn emergent physical patterns in weather systems, something epidemiologists hope to replicate for pandemics.
There's the challenge of doing that in an infectious disease context. We have much, much less data. We're at an earlier stage, but I think there are some promising applications .
In terms if the private market's role, Ferguson says he’s worked closely with reinsurers like Swiss Re on pandemic risk and catastrophe bonds and that the insurance and reinsurance industry has proven to be a reliable and more objective partner.
They're really they're not particularly wedded to any one model. They do want the best insight, and in my experience, they listen.
He’s cautiously optimistic about government institutional capacity despite current political climate. The U.S. CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Analytics and the UK’s Health Security Agency continue a shift toward sustained modeling infrastructure.
📺 Listen to the full episode here
