Incorporating Authority Perception, Economic Status, and Behavioral Response in Infectious Disease Control

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Huaning, Yang, Junke, Larsen, Soren L., Martinez, Pamela P., Dayanikli, Gokce
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Liu, Huaning
Yang, Junke
Larsen, Soren L.
Martinez, Pamela P.
Dayanikli, Gokce
author_facet Liu, Huaning
Yang, Junke
Larsen, Soren L.
Martinez, Pamela P.
Dayanikli, Gokce
contents We introduce a multi-population mean field game framework to examine how economic status and authority perception shape vaccination and social distancing decisions under different epidemic control policies. We carried out a survey to inform our model and stratify the population into six groups based on income and perception of authority, capturing behavioral heterogeneity. Individuals adjust their socialization and vaccination levels to optimize objectives such as minimizing treatment costs, complying with social-distancing guidelines if they are authority-followers, or reducing losses from decreased social interactions if they are authority-indifferents, alongside economic costs. Public health authorities influence behavior through social-distancing guidelines and vaccination costs. We characterize the Nash equilibrium via a forward-backward differential equation system, provide its mathematical analysis, and develop a numerical algorithm to solve it. Our findings reveal a trade-off between social-distancing and vaccination decisions. Under stricter guidelines that target both susceptible and infected individuals, followers reduce both socialization and vaccination levels, while indifferents increase socialization due to followers' preventative measures. Adaptive guidelines targeting infected individuals effectively reduce infections and narrow the gap between low- and high-income groups, even when susceptible individuals socialize more and vaccinate less. Lower vaccination costs incentivize vaccination among low-income groups, but their impact on disease spread is smaller than when they are coupled with social-distancing guidelines. Trust-building emerges as a critical factor in epidemic mitigation, underscoring the importance of data-informed, game-theoretical models that aim to understand complex human responses to mitigation policies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_23188
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Incorporating Authority Perception, Economic Status, and Behavioral Response in Infectious Disease Control
Liu, Huaning
Yang, Junke
Larsen, Soren L.
Martinez, Pamela P.
Dayanikli, Gokce
Optimization and Control
We introduce a multi-population mean field game framework to examine how economic status and authority perception shape vaccination and social distancing decisions under different epidemic control policies. We carried out a survey to inform our model and stratify the population into six groups based on income and perception of authority, capturing behavioral heterogeneity. Individuals adjust their socialization and vaccination levels to optimize objectives such as minimizing treatment costs, complying with social-distancing guidelines if they are authority-followers, or reducing losses from decreased social interactions if they are authority-indifferents, alongside economic costs. Public health authorities influence behavior through social-distancing guidelines and vaccination costs. We characterize the Nash equilibrium via a forward-backward differential equation system, provide its mathematical analysis, and develop a numerical algorithm to solve it. Our findings reveal a trade-off between social-distancing and vaccination decisions. Under stricter guidelines that target both susceptible and infected individuals, followers reduce both socialization and vaccination levels, while indifferents increase socialization due to followers' preventative measures. Adaptive guidelines targeting infected individuals effectively reduce infections and narrow the gap between low- and high-income groups, even when susceptible individuals socialize more and vaccinate less. Lower vaccination costs incentivize vaccination among low-income groups, but their impact on disease spread is smaller than when they are coupled with social-distancing guidelines. Trust-building emerges as a critical factor in epidemic mitigation, underscoring the importance of data-informed, game-theoretical models that aim to understand complex human responses to mitigation policies.
title Incorporating Authority Perception, Economic Status, and Behavioral Response in Infectious Disease Control
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23188