The Air-Surface Interface of Viral Contamination: What Can Exposure Modeling Tell Us?

About the Webinar:

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of understanding how communicable diseases are transmitted and the relationships between different transmission routes. Exposure modeling is a useful tool for exploring and describing the fate and transport of viral pathogens in indoor environments. This presentation will explore examples of exposure modeling used to investigate connections between air and surface contamination and potential implications for 1) healthcare workers’ occupational exposures and 2) risk reductions offered by interventions.

Learning Objectives

Describe the relationship between aerosol and fomite transmission routes and their relative contributions to exposures to respiratory viral pathogens
Review how human behaviors are incorporated into exposure modeling and their importance to estimating exposures and risks
Discuss the quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) framework for characterizing microbial exposures and risks

Instructor: Amanda M. Wilson, PhD, MS

Amanda M. Wilson, PhD, MS is a postdoctoral researcher at the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Utah. She completed her PhD and MS in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Arizona where her training focused on quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), exposure science, and exposure modeling. Her research interests include infectious diseases, healthcare-associated infections, exposure modeling, and risk assessment. She is inspired and motivated by multidisciplinary, collaborative work to address complex public health problems and looks to expand her current research focus by exploring methodologies for addressing risk-risk tradeoffs that arise out of intervention implementation.

Recorded on February 9, 2021

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