Comparison of mathematical models for the dynamics of the Chernivtsi children disease

Different mathematical models are built of a selection of mechanisms, and they reproduce observations in a quantitatively different manner. A suitable error functional is used to compare the models and to detect mechanisms, which probably caused the observations. For this aim, parameter identification oftentimes is seen as the determination of a best approximation out of the set of feasible solutions of the model, which can be identified with the set. In this paper, the comparison of different model approaches is discussed with respect to observation data from a disease that occurred in 1988 in Chernivtsi in Ukraine. The cause of the disease remained unclear. The quantitative measure of the error functional and selected qualitative properties are used to distinguish the models. Even though only a small set of data for the number of affected persons is available, a comparison of a contamination model and an epidemical model suggests that the cause of the disease is rather an infection than an exposure to environmental toxin.