Dynamical evolution of social network polarization and its impact on the propagation of a virus

Ixandra Achitouv and David Chavalarias

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2025, vol. 199, issue P1

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2020 has highlighted the complex interplay between vaccine hesitancy and societal polarization. In this study, we analyze the dynamical polarization within a social network as well as the network properties before and after a vaccine was made available. Our results show that as the network evolves from a less structured state to one with more clustered communities. Then using an agent-based modeling approach, we simulate the propagation of a virus in a polarized society by assigning vaccines to pro-vaccine individuals and none to the anti-vaccine individuals. We compare this propagation to the case where the same number of vaccines is distributed homogeneously across the population. In polarized networks, we observe a significantly more widespread diffusion of the virus, highlighting the importance of considering polarization for epidemic forecasting.

Keywords: Stochastic process; Complex networks; Non-linear dynamics; Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:199:y:2025:i:p1:s0960077925006897

DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2025.116676

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