Resource Support for "Mobilization-Participation" in Public Health Emergencies Based on a Complex Network Evolutionary Game

Healthcare (Basel). 2023 May 22;11(10):1506. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11101506.

Abstract

The organized system of emergency resources with the participation of social subjects features a network, which puts forward new requirements for mobilization policies for public health emergencies. Considering the "mobilization-participation" action of the relationship between the government and social resource subjects and revealing the mechanism of governance measures represent the foundation of developing effective mobilization strategies. To analyze the behavior of subjects in an emergency resource network, this study proposes a framework for the emergency actions of government and social resource subjects, as well as clarifies the functions of relational mechanisms and interorganizational learning in decision making. The game model and its rules of evolution in the network were developed by considering the interventions of rewards and penalties. An emergency resource network was constructed on the basis of a response to the COVID-19 epidemic in a city in China, and a simulation of the "mobilization-participation" game was designed and conducted. We propose a path to promote emergency resource actions by analyzing the initial situations and the interventions' effects. This article suggests that guiding and improving the initial selection of subjects under a certain reward system would be an effective path to facilitate resource support actions during public health emergencies.

Keywords: COVID-19; emergency resource; emergency resource network; game model; mobilization–participation.