Modeling of contact tracing in social networks

Lev S Tsimring and Ramón Huerta

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2003, vol. 325, issue 1, 33-39

Abstract: Spreading of certain infections in complex networks is effectively suppressed by using intelligent strategies for epidemic control. One such standard epidemiological strategy consists in tracing contacts of infected individuals. In this paper, we use a recently introduced generalization of the standard susceptible-infectious-removed stochastic model for epidemics in sparse random networks which incorporates an additional (traced) state. We describe a deterministic mean-field description which yields quantitative agreement with stochastic simulations on random graphs. We also discuss the role of contact tracing in epidemics control in small-world and scale-free networks. Effectiveness of contact tracing grows as the rewiring probability is reduced.

Keywords: Epidemics; SIR model; Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:325:y:2003:i:1:p:33-39

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(03)00180-8

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