Game Theoretic Modeling of Infectious Disease Transmission with Delayed Emergence of Symptoms

Marzieh Soltanolkottabi,David Ben-Arieh,Chih-Hang Wu

doi:10.3390/g11020020

Marzieh Soltanolkottabi, David Ben-Arieh + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/g11020020

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Journal: Games	Publication Date: Apr 20, 2020
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of New Haven, Kansas State University

Abstract

Modeling the spread of infectious diseases and social responses is one method that can help public health policy makers improve the control of epidemic outbreaks and make better decisions about vaccination costs, the number of mandatory vaccinations, or investment in media efforts to inform the public of disease threats. Incubation period—the period when an individual has been exposed to a disease and could be infectious but is not yet aware of it—is one factor that can affect an epidemic outbreak, and considering it when modeling outbreaks can improve model accuracy. A change in outbreak activity can occur from the time a person becomes infected until they become aware of infection when they can transmit the disease but their social group considers them a susceptible individual and not an infectious one. This study evaluates the effect of this delay between the time of infection of an individual and the time of diagnosis of the infection (incubation period) in an epidemic outbreak. This study investigates the social dynamics of vaccination and transmission in such epidemic outbreaks, using a model of the public goods game.

Highlights

Modeling the spread of infectious diseases is one method that can help public health decision makers contain epidemic outbreaks
In recent years, there has been reinforced evidence that the number of infectious diseases has increased in North America due to global warming [1]
The WHO has reported that globalization and its effects on economic, environmental, demographic, and topological changes in societies is causing a higher risk of confronting infectious disease [2]

Summary

Introduction

Modeling the spread of infectious diseases is one method that can help public health decision makers contain epidemic outbreaks. Such models can predict the outcome of different scenarios to control an outbreak and can facilitate the design and implementation of policies that could contain outbreaks and lower public health cost for society. In recent years, there has been reinforced evidence that the number of infectious diseases has increased in North America due to global warming [1]. There is increasing need for accurate models that describe the behavior of individuals in response to an epidemic outbreak, along with the resulting societal health consequences. Some factors that play a role in modeling epidemics are the number of infected and vaccinated individuals and their distribution in populations, the cost of being infected, vaccination cost and transmission rate of the disease [3,4,5]

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