Effects of awareness diffusion and self-initiated awareness behavior on epidemic spreading - an approach based on multiplex networks

摘要

In this paper, we study the interplay between the epidemic spreading and thediffusion of awareness in multiplex networks. In the model, an infectiousdisease can spread in one network representing the paths of epidemic spreading(contact network), leading to the diffusion of awareness in the other network(information network), and then the diffusion of awareness will causeindividuals to take social distances, which in turn affects the epidemicspreading. As for the diffusion of awareness, we assume that, on the one hand,individuals can be informed by other aware neighbors in information network, onthe other hand, the susceptible individuals can be self-awareness induced bythe infected neighbors in the contact networks (local information) or massmedia (global information). Through Markov chain approach and numericalcomputations, we find that the density of infected individuals and the epidemicthreshold can be affected by the structures of the two networks and theeffective transmission rate of the awareness. However, we prove that though theintroduction of the self-awareness can lower the density of infection, whichcannot increase the epidemic threshold no matter of the local information orglobal information. Our finding is remarkably different to many previousresults--local information based behavioral response can alter the epidemicthreshold.