Impact of human contact patterns on epidemic spreading in time-varying networks.

Abstract

Human contact behaviors involve both dormant and active processes. The dormant (active) process goes from the disappearance (creation) to the creation (disappearance) of an edge. The dormant (active) time is the elapsed time since the edge became dormant (active). Many empirical studies have revealed that dormant and active times in human contact behaviors tend to show a long-tailed distribution. Previous researches focused on the impact of the dormant process on spreading dynamics. However, the epidemic spreading happens on the active process. This raises the question of how the active process affects epidemic spreading in complex networks. Here, we propose a novel time-varying network model in which the distributions of both the dormant time and active time of edges are adjustable. We develop a pairwise approximation method to describe the spreading dynamical processes in the time-varying networks. Through extensive numerical simulations, we find that the epidemic threshold is proportional to the mean dormant time and inversely proportional to the mean active time. The attack rate decreases with the increase of mean dormant time and increases with the increase of mean active time. It is worth noting that the epidemic threshold and the attack rate (e.g., the infected density in the steady state) are independent of the heterogeneities of the dormant time distribution and the active time distribution. Increasing the heterogeneity of the dormant time distribution accelerates epidemic spreading while increasing the heterogeneity of the active time distribution slows it down.