Basic reproduction number for a population with an exponential age distribution

Description

Mathematical models can project how infectious diseases progress to show the likely outcome of an epidemic and help inform public health interventions. Models use some basic assumptions and mathematics to find parameters for various infectious diseases and use those parameters to calculate the effects of possible interventions, like mass vaccination programms. The basic reproduction number is
the average number of other individuals each infected individual will infect in a population that has no immunity to the disease. For a population with an exponential age distribution the basic reproduction number of a disease is depended on the average age at which the disease is contracted in a given population and the average life expectancy in a given population.