Mathematic Modelling: Improving the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of Interventions, Part B, the latest volume in the Advances in Parasitology series contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews in the field of mathematic modeling and its implementation within parasitology. The series includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes, along with reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, all of which shape current thinking and applications.

First published in 1963, Advances in Parasitology contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews in all areas of interest in contemporary parasitology. Advances in Parasitology includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, such as Plasmodium falciparum and trypanosomes. The series also contains reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history, which shape current thinking and applications. The 2013 impact factor is 4.36.

Since the beginning of this century there has been a growing interest in the study of the epidemiology and population dynamics of infectious disease agents. Mathematical and statistical methods have played an important role in the development of this field and a large, and sophisticated, literature exists which is concerned with the theory of epidemiological processes in popu lations and the dynamics of epidemie and endemie disease phenomena. Much ofthis literature is, however, rather formal and abstract in character, and the field has tended to become rather detached from its empirical base. Relatively little of the literature, for example, deals with the practical issues which are of major concern to public health workers. Encouragingly, in recent years there are signs of an increased awareness amongst theoreticians of the need to confront predictions with observed epidemiological trends, and to pay elose attention to the biological details of the interaction between host and disease agent. This trend has in part been stimulated by the early work of Ross and Macdonald, on the transmission dynamics of tropical parasitic infections, but a further impetus has been the recent advances made by ecologists in blending theory and observation in the study of plant and animal populations.

Much acclaimed, this book is now available in paperback. It provides an analytical framework for evaluating public health measures aimed at eradicating or controlling communicable diseases. The authors are leaders in the field. Their distinctive contribution has been to show the practice and far-reaching power of mathematical modelling in epidemiology, fully set out here for the first time.