Time-varying human mobility patterns with metapopulation epidemic dynamics

Yong-Wang Gong, Yu-Rong Song and Guo-Ping Jiang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2013, vol. 392, issue 19, 4242-4251

Abstract: In this paper, explicitly considering the influences of an epidemic outbreak on human travel, a time-varying human mobility pattern is introduced to model the time variation of global human travel. The impacts of the pattern on epidemic dynamics in heterogeneous metapopulation networks, wherein each node represents a subpopulation with any number of individuals, are investigated by using a mean-field approach. The results show that the pattern does not alter the epidemic threshold, but can slightly lower the final average density of infected individuals as a whole. More importantly, we also find that the pattern produces different impacts on nodes with different degree, and that there exists a critical degree kc. For nodes with degree smaller than kc, the pattern produces a positive impact on epidemic mitigation; conversely, for nodes with degree larger than kc, the pattern produces a negative impact on epidemic mitigation.

Keywords: Human mobility pattern; Epidemic dynamics; Reaction–diffusion process; Complex network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:19:p:4242-4251

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.05.028

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