Citation

Kitchovitch S, Liò P. PLoS One 2011; 6(7): e22220.

Affiliation

Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0022220

PMID

21789238

PMCID

PMC3138783

Abstract

During an infectious disease outbreak people will often change their behaviour to reduce their risk of infection. Furthermore, in a given population, the level of perceived risk of infection will vary greatly amongst individuals. The difference in perception could be due to a variety of factors including varying levels of information regarding the pathogen, quality of local healthcare, availability of preventative measures, etc. In this work we argue that we can split a social network, representing a population, into interacting communities with varying levels of awareness of the disease. We construct a theoretical population and study which such communities suffer most of the burden of the disease and how their awareness affects the spread of infection. We aim to gain a better understanding of the effects that community-structured networks and variations in awareness, or risk perception, have on the disease dynamics and to promote more community-resolved modelling in epidemiology.

Language: en