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Main Authors: Balogh, Andras, Oraby, Tamer
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05369
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author Balogh, Andras
Oraby, Tamer
author_facet Balogh, Andras
Oraby, Tamer
contents Vaccination is an effective strategy to prevent the spread of diseases. However, hesitancy and rejection of vaccines, particularly in childhood immunizations, pose challenges to vaccination efforts. In that case, according to rational decision-making and classical utility theory, parents weigh the costs of vaccination against the costs of not vaccinating their children. Social norms influence these parental decision-making outcomes, deviating their decisions from rationality. Additionally, variability in values of utilities stemming from stochasticity in parents' perceptions over time can lead to further deviations from rationality. In this paper, we employ independent white noises to represent stochastic fluctuations in parental perceptions of utility functions of the decisions over time, as well as in the disease transmission rates. This approach leads to a system of stochastic differential equations of a susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model coupled with a stochastic replicator equation. We explore the dynamics of these equations and identify new behaviors emerging from stochastic influences. Interestingly, incorporating stochasticity into the utility functions for vaccination and nonvaccination leads to a decision-making model that reflects the bounded rationality of humans. Noise, like social norms, is a two-sided sword that depends on the degree of bounded rationality of each group. We also perform a stochastic optimal control as a discount to the cost of vaccination to counteract bounded rationality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_05369
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stochastic games of parental vaccination decision making and bounded rationality
Balogh, Andras
Oraby, Tamer
Probability
Vaccination is an effective strategy to prevent the spread of diseases. However, hesitancy and rejection of vaccines, particularly in childhood immunizations, pose challenges to vaccination efforts. In that case, according to rational decision-making and classical utility theory, parents weigh the costs of vaccination against the costs of not vaccinating their children. Social norms influence these parental decision-making outcomes, deviating their decisions from rationality. Additionally, variability in values of utilities stemming from stochasticity in parents' perceptions over time can lead to further deviations from rationality. In this paper, we employ independent white noises to represent stochastic fluctuations in parental perceptions of utility functions of the decisions over time, as well as in the disease transmission rates. This approach leads to a system of stochastic differential equations of a susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model coupled with a stochastic replicator equation. We explore the dynamics of these equations and identify new behaviors emerging from stochastic influences. Interestingly, incorporating stochasticity into the utility functions for vaccination and nonvaccination leads to a decision-making model that reflects the bounded rationality of humans. Noise, like social norms, is a two-sided sword that depends on the degree of bounded rationality of each group. We also perform a stochastic optimal control as a discount to the cost of vaccination to counteract bounded rationality.
title Stochastic games of parental vaccination decision making and bounded rationality
topic Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05369