Effects of the Awareness-Driven Individual Resource Allocation on the Epidemic Dynamics

Abstract

We investigate the effects of self-protection awareness on the spread of disease from the aspect of resource allocation behavior in populations. To this end, a resource-based epidemiological model and a self-awareness-based resource allocation model in complex networks are proposed, respectively. First of all, we study the coupled disease-awareness dynamics in complex networks with fixed degree heterogeneity. Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we find that overall the self-awareness inhibits the spread of disease. More importantly, the influence of the self-awareness on the spreading dynamics can be divided into three phases. In phase I, the self-awareness is relatively small and the outbreak of the epidemic can not be suppressed effectively. While, in phase II, the epidemic size is significantly reduced. Finally, in phase III, there is a sufficiently large value of self-awareness, the disease cannot outbreak anymore. Further, we study the impact of degree heterogeneity on the coupled disease-awareness dynamics and find that the network heterogeneity plays the role of “double-edged sword” in that it can either suppress or promote the epidemic spreading. Specifically, when the basic infection rate is relatively small, it promotes the spread of disease under the condition that there is a relatively small self-awareness. While, when the basic infection rate is relatively large, it inhibits the outbreak of epidemic at a relatively small self-awareness; in turn, it promotes the outbreak of epidemic at a relatively large self-awareness.