We are pleased to share a commentary published in Global Epidemiology by CPEMPH members Pieter Streicher and Alex Broadbent, with co-author Joel Hellewell (EMBL-EBI), titled “The need for methodological pluralism in epidemiological modelling.”
This paper examines two high-profile failures in Covid-19 forecasting by the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), during the Delta and Omicron waves of 2021. In both instances, projections proved not only inaccurate but too vague to be practically useful—hospitalisations were overestimated by an order of magnitude, and deaths by even more.
The authors argue that a key contributor to these failures was SAGE’s reliance on a single modelling approach: mechanistic simulation. By contrast, the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium adopted a pluralistic strategy—combining mechanistic and descriptive methods, learning iteratively from outcomes, and achieving far greater predictive accuracy despite far fewer resources.
The commentary makes a strong case for adopting methodological pluralism in epidemic modelling, highlighting the value of multiple, complementary perspectives when dealing with uncertainty in high-stakes contexts. The paper calls for diverse methodological inputs, critical evaluation of past performance, and more open-minded engagement with data from a variety of global contexts.
CPEMPH 