Epidemic spreading induced by diversity of agents' mobility

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2012 Aug;86(2 Pt 2):026115. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.86.026115. Epub 2012 Aug 27.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the impact of the preference of an individual for public transport on the spread of infectious disease, through a quantity known as the public mobility. Our theoretical and numerical results based on a constructed model reveal that if the average public mobility of the agents is fixed, an increase in the diversity of the agents' public mobility reduces the epidemic threshold, beyond which an enhancement in the rate of infection is observed. Our findings provide an approach to improve the resistance of a society against infectious disease, while preserving the utilization rate of the public transportation system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Communicable Diseases / epidemiology*
  • Communicable Diseases / transmission
  • Computer Simulation
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Epidemics*
  • Models, Statistical
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Movement
  • Population Dynamics
  • Probability
  • Singapore
  • Transportation