Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Coupling the dynamics of infectious diseases and behavioral responses on complex networks

Anupama Sharma

IMSc Chennai

The classical epidemic models assume that individuals interact with each other at random, as particles of a perfect gas. This rules out any possibility of human behavioral influences on the epidemic trajectory. However in reality, humans have tendency to form social ties and thereby groups, which gives rise to social structures in the population. The effect of human behavior becomes more pronounced in presence of a potential epidemic threat and can serve as an innate intervention. We consider that behavioral responses, emerging as a feedback to the outbreak of epidemic, further modifies the contact structure and examine the resulting change in the dynamics of disease spread.