R1.6: Why are individual-based models excluded?

[jessexknight]

It was not clear why the authors excluded individual-based approaches from this review. Although people tend to use the terms 'compartmental models' and 'deterministic models' interchangeably, some would argue the terms mean slightly different things (see Garnett, STIs, 2002, 78:7-12). The point is that it's possible for an individual-based model to be 'compartmental' in the sense that it works with categorical variables rather than continuously-defined variables. In such cases one could argue for including an individual-based model in the review, since its compartments/categories can be classified in the same way as a deterministic model. But even when key variables are defined on a continuous scale it's not clear why you would want to exclude the individual-based model from the review.