An Application of Small-world Network on Predicting the Behavior of Infectious Disease on Campus

Overview

Journal Infect Dis Model

Specialty Infectious Diseases

Date 2024 Jan 23

PMID 38261962

Authors

Guojin Wang

Wei Yao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Networks haven been widely used to understand the spread of infectious disease. This study examines the properties of small-world networks in modeling infectious disease on campus. Two different small-world models are developed and the behaviors of infectious disease in the models are observed through numerical simulations. The results show that the behavior pattern of infectious disease in a small-world network is different from those in a regular network or a random network. The spread of the infectious disease increases as the proportion of long-distance connections increasing, which indicates that reducing the contact among people is an effective measure to control the spread of infectious disease. The probability of node position exchange in a network () had no significant effect on the spreading speed, which suggests that reducing human mobility in closed environments does not help control infectious disease. However, the spreading speed is proportional to the number of shared nodes (), which means reducing connections between different groups and dividing students into separate sections will help to control infectious disease. In the end, the simulating speed of the small-world network is tested and the quadratic relationship between simulation time and the number of nodes may limit the application of the SW network in areas with large populations.

Citing Articles

Descriptive epidemiology of Lassa fever, its trend, seasonality, and mortality predictors in Ebonyi State, South- East, Nigeria, 2018-2022.

Ezenwa-Ahanene A, Salawu A, Adebowale A BMC Public Health. 2024; 24(1):3470.

PMID: 39695525 PMC: 11658097. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-20840-y.

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