Vaccination and Complex Social Dynamics

TL;DR

This study explores how digital communication networks can be used to identify target groups for vaccination and outbreak monitoring, revealing their effectiveness varies with disease transmission range and emphasizing the importance of pathogen-specific strategies.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential and limitations of using telecommunication and social media data for targeted epidemic interventions based on transmission characteristics.

Findings

Target groups for outbreak monitoring can be identified using communication network data.

Digital communication data improves short-range transmission vaccination efficacy.

Performance drops for long-range transmission when using communication network data.

Abstract

Vaccination and outbreak monitoring are essential tools for preventing and minimizing outbreaks of infectious diseases. Targeted strategies, where the individuals most important for monitoring or preventing outbreaks are selected for intervention, offer a possibility to significantly improve these measures. Although targeted strategies carry a strong potential, identifying optimal target groups remains a challenge. Here we consider the problem of identifying target groups based on digital communication networks (telecommunication, online social media) in order to predict and contain an infectious disease spreading on a real-world person-to-person network of more than 500 individuals. We show that target groups for efficient outbreak monitoring can be determined based on both telecommunication and online social network information. In case of vaccination the information regarding the digital communication networks improves the efficacy for short-range disease transmissions but, surprisingly, performance is severely reduced in the case of long-range transmission. These results are robust with respect to the strategy used to identify targeted individuals and time-gap between identification of targets and the intervention. Thus, we demonstrate that data available from telecommunication and online social networks can greatly improve epidemic control measures, but it is important to consider the details of the pathogen spreading mechanism when such policies are applied.