Connecting Mass-action Models and Network Models for Infectious Diseases

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Main Authors: Le, Thien-Minh, Onnela, Jukka-Pekka
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Le, Thien-Minh
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka
author_facet Le, Thien-Minh
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka
contents Infectious disease modeling is used to forecast epidemics and assess the effectiveness of intervention strategies. Although the core assumption of mass-action models of homogeneously mixed population is often implausible, they are nevertheless routinely used in studying epidemics and provide useful insights. Network models can account for the heterogeneous mixing of populations, which is especially important for studying sexually transmitted diseases. Despite the abundance of research on mass-action and network models, the relationship between them is not well understood. Here, we attempt to bridge the gap by first identifying a spreading rule that results in an exact match between disease spreading on a fully connected network and the classic mass-action models. We then propose a method for mapping epidemic spread on arbitrary networks to a form similar to that of mass-action models. We also provide a theoretical justification for the procedure. Finally, we show the advantages of the proposed methods using synthetic data that is based on an empirical network. These findings help us understand when mass-action models and network models are expected to provide similar results and identify reasons when they do not.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_15353
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Connecting Mass-action Models and Network Models for Infectious Diseases
Le, Thien-Minh
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka
Physics and Society
Populations and Evolution
Applications
Infectious disease modeling is used to forecast epidemics and assess the effectiveness of intervention strategies. Although the core assumption of mass-action models of homogeneously mixed population is often implausible, they are nevertheless routinely used in studying epidemics and provide useful insights. Network models can account for the heterogeneous mixing of populations, which is especially important for studying sexually transmitted diseases. Despite the abundance of research on mass-action and network models, the relationship between them is not well understood. Here, we attempt to bridge the gap by first identifying a spreading rule that results in an exact match between disease spreading on a fully connected network and the classic mass-action models. We then propose a method for mapping epidemic spread on arbitrary networks to a form similar to that of mass-action models. We also provide a theoretical justification for the procedure. Finally, we show the advantages of the proposed methods using synthetic data that is based on an empirical network. These findings help us understand when mass-action models and network models are expected to provide similar results and identify reasons when they do not.
title Connecting Mass-action Models and Network Models for Infectious Diseases
topic Physics and Society
Populations and Evolution
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15353