Effects of human dynamics on epidemic spreading in C\^{o}te d'Ivoire

TL;DR

This paper models the complex epidemic spreading in Cf4te d'Ivoire by integrating human mobility, interaction, and demographics, revealing insights into outbreak conditions and the impact of human dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model combining multiple human factors and provides data-driven simulation and theoretical analysis for epidemic prediction.

Findings

Average local reproductive number > 1 is not necessary for outbreaks

Spreading can be explained as a heterogeneous diffusion-reaction process

Heterogeneity of human dynamics complicates precise prediction

Abstract

Understanding and predicting outbreaks of contagious diseases are crucial to the development of society and public health, especially for underdeveloped countries. However, challenging problems are encountered because of complex epidemic spreading dynamics influenced by spatial structure and human dynamics (including both human mobility and human interaction intensity). We propose a systematical model to depict nationwide epidemic spreading in C\^{o}te d'Ivoire, which integrates multiple factors, such as human mobility, human interaction intensity, and demographic features. We provide insights to aid in modeling and predicting the epidemic spreading process by data-driven simulation and theoretical analysis, which is otherwise beyond the scope of local evaluation and geometrical views. We show that the requirement that the average local basic reproductive number to be greater than unity is not necessary for outbreaks of epidemics. The observed spreading phenomenon can be roughly explained as a heterogeneous diffusion-reaction process by redefining mobility distance according to the human mobility volume between nodes, which is beyond the geometrical viewpoint. However, the heterogeneity of human dynamics still poses challenges to precise prediction.