Speaker
Description
The 2022 mpox outbreak disproportionately affected gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) in the United Kingdom, prompting the need for models that reflect both the epidemiological realities of transmission and the lived experiences of affected communities. We developed a dynamic network model capturing sexual and non-sexual close contact transmission dynamics. Central to this work is a co-production process with team members bringing lived experience and alongside broader community engagement workshops to bring modellers and GBMSM community members together to jointly refine assumptions, clarify behavioural patterns, and shape research priorities. These collaborative sessions were aimed at improved transparency, strengthened trust, and ensuring that the final model realistically represented diverse sexual partnerships and patterns and types of sexual behaviour, and community informed understandings of non-sexual exposure risks. Through this co-production approach we demonstrate how lived experiences can meaningfully shape the model structure, improve the relevance of transmission scenarios, and support more effective and equitable public health responses. In this talk I explain our modelling process and illustrate how co-production has influenced its development.
