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Influence of opinions on vaccines on the evolution of a disease

Lucila G. Zuzek 1Cristian E. La Rocca 1Lidia A. Braunstein 1Jose Roberto Iglesias 2,3

1. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (IFIMAR), Dean Funes 3350, Mar del Plata 7600, Argentina
2. Universidade do Vale dos Sinos (UNISINOS), Av. Unisinos 950, Sao Leopoldo 93022-750, Brazil
3. Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia de Sistems Complexos (INCT-SC), Rua Xavier Sigaud 150, Rio de Janeiro 22290-180, Brazil

Abstract

Some doubts about the effects, beneficial or not, of vaccines arose in recent years. As a consequence some people decide to not vaccinate themselves and/or their relatives. This attitude in face of vaccines has clear consequences in the spread of diseases. In this paper we study, in a simultaneous way, the changes of opinions on vaccination together with the evolution of a disease that can become epidemic. To do so we consider a bi-layered complex network. One of the layers corresponds to a social network where people confront their opinions and influence the opinions of the others. This network may be of real or virtual contacts. The second layer corresponds to a network of physical contacts that can cause contagion of a disease. The dynamics of opinions makes use of a model where intermediate opinions are possible, and the evolution is such that with a given probability p opinions evolve towards extremes (In favor or against vaccination), while with probability 1-p opinions evolve to a middle term position1. The dynamics of contagion proceeds through the well-known SIR model. The results are sensitive to the ratio r=p/(1-p), to the infectivity of the disease and to the efficacy of the vaccine that we call W. Even though the results depend of the infectivity and on the ratio r, one observes that if the efficacy is lower than 80% opinion generally evolves against the vaccine, while for higher efficacy most of the populations decide to vaccinate.

[1] C.E. La Rocca, L.A. Braunstein, andĀ F. Vazquez: The influence of persuasion in opinion formation and polarization. Europhys. Lett. 106 (2014) 40004.

 

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Presentation: Oral at Econophysics Colloquium 2017, Symposium C, by Jose Roberto Iglesias
See On-line Journal of Econophysics Colloquium 2017

Submitted: 2017-02-03 16:47
Revised:   2017-02-03 16:47