An Open Data Driven Epidemiological Agent-Based Model for Irish Towns

Agent-based models have become popular as tools for epidemiological simulations due to their ability to model at the individual level. To produce results that can be readily applied to a given population, agent-based models need to be data rich and it can be difficult to obtain sources of data representing the population being modeled. There are, however, many sources of openly available data that can be used to create a simulation. In this paper we demonstrate how openly available data, primarily from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office, can be used to develop epidemiological simulation models for Irish towns. Using openly available data allows anyone to have access to the data used in the model to evaluate or recreate our work. We present case studies modeling two different towns, Rathnew and Bagenalstown.