Chapter 27 - Social Networks, Contagion Processes and the Spreading of Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Questions concerning how pathogens spread in a population, the worldwide diffusion of new emerging diseases, as well as the description of many social contagion phenomena such as smoking behavior or the adoption of dietary habits, are all dealing with the complex features of our increasingly interconnected societies. The dynamic processes that characterize large-scale spreading and contagion phenomena are indeed at work in complex societies where infrastructures composed of different technological layers are interoperating within the social component that drives their use and development. In other words, the characterization and understanding of these systems goes through a system-level perspective, which represents a new challenge that has considerably transformed the mathematical and conceptual framework for the study of dynamic processes in complex systems.