Phase transitions find application well beyond the context of equilibrium thermodynamics, where they arose. We review one of the prime examples of a phase transition in a system lacking thermodynamics, the contact process (PC), emphasizing mean-field theory methods. We also present mean-field results for a model of transmission of malaria in a population, and discuss the new approaches of quasi-stationary distributions, and the conserved contact process.
phase transitions; contact process; mean-field approximation; malaria
