Impact of commuting on disease persistence in heterogeneous metapopulations

TL;DR

This study uses a stochastic metapopulation model to explore how seasonality and spatial heterogeneity influence disease persistence, revealing that heterogeneity and coupling strength significantly affect epidemic stability.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how heterogeneity and coupling impact disease persistence, with analytic results linking stability to system attractors.

Findings

Heterogeneity enhances disease persistence.

Intermediate coupling strength optimizes persistence.

Stability relates to attractor properties, not phase lag.

Abstract

We use a stochastic metapopulation model to study the combined effects of seasonality and spatial heterogeneity on disease persistence. We find a pronounced effect of enhanced persistence associated with strong heterogeneity, intermediate coupling strength and moderate seasonal forcing. Analytic calculations show that this effect is not related with the phase lag between epidemic bursts in different patches, but rather with the linear stability properties of the attractor that describes the steady state of the system in the large population limit.