Competing spreading processes on multiplex networks: awareness and epidemics

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the critical dynamics of competing epidemic and awareness spreading processes on multiplex networks, exploring how different interaction scenarios and mass media influence epidemic thresholds and the existence of a metacritical point.

Contribution

It extends previous work by analyzing scenarios where awareness does not guarantee total immunization and infection does not immediately trigger awareness, revealing the robustness of the metacritical point.

Findings

Mass media broadcasting eliminates the metacritical point.

The critical relation between epidemic and awareness processes depends on interaction parameters.

The existence of a metacritical point is rooted in the competition principle across various scenarios.

Abstract

Epidemic-like spreading processes on top of multilayered interconnected complex networks reveal a rich phase diagram of intertwined competition effects. A recent study by the authors [Granell et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 128701 (2013)] presented the analysis of the interrelation between two processes accounting for the spreading of an epidemics, and the spreading of information awareness to prevent its infection, on top of multiplex networks. The results in the case in which awareness implies total immunization to the disease, revealed the existence of a metacritical point at which the critical onset of the epidemics starts depending on the reaching of the awareness process. Here we present a full analysis of these critical properties in the more general scenario where the awareness spreading does not imply total immunization, and where infection does not imply immediate awareness of it. We find the critical relation between both competing processes for a wide spectrum of parameters representing the interaction between them. We also analyze the consequences of a massive broadcast of awareness (mass media) on the final outcome of the epidemic incidence. Importantly enough, the mass media makes the metacritical point to disappear. The results reveal that the main finding i.e. existence of a metacritical point, is rooted on the competition principle and holds for a large set of scenarios.