Mean-field-type equations for spread of epidemics: the ‘small world’ model

Adam Kleczkowski and Bryan T. Grenfell

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 1999, vol. 274, issue 1, 355-360

Abstract: In the paper we study a cellular automata (CA) model of epidemic dynamics. The effects of local spatial correlations on a temporal (aggregated) spread of single epidemics are studied, as a function of increasing proportion of global contacts (‘small world’ model). We conjecture that even in the presence of high local correlations, the aggregated (mean-field-type) models can be quite successful, if the contact rate is treated as a free parameter. The dependence of the (estimated) contact rate on the mixing parameter can be understood in terms of a simple probabilistic model. The contact rate reflects not only a microscopic and epidemiological situation, but also a complicated social pattern, including short- and long-range contacts as well as a possibly hierarchical structure of human society.

Keywords: Mean-field-type equations; Epidemics; ‘Small-world’ model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437199003933
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:274:y:1999:i:1:p:355-360

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(99)00393-3

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().