The Impact of Information Dissemination on Vaccination in Multiplex Networks

TL;DR

This paper models how information dissemination affects vaccination behavior in multiplex networks, revealing that increased information spread raises epidemic thresholds but may reduce vaccination levels and increase infections.

Contribution

It introduces an evolutionary vaccination game model incorporating an information-epidemic spreading process in multiplex networks, highlighting complex effects of information dissemination on vaccination.

Findings

Information dissemination raises the epidemic threshold.

More information transmission can decrease vaccination levels.

Increased information dissemination may lead to higher infection density.

Abstract

The impact of information dissemination on epidemic control is essentially subject to individual behaviors. Unlike information-driven behaviors, vaccination is determined by many cost-related factors, whose correlation with the information dissemination should be better understood. To this end, we propose an evolutionary vaccination game model in multiplex networks by integrating an information-epidemic spreading process into the vaccination dynamics, and explore how information dissemination influences vaccination. The spreading process is described by a two-layer coupled susceptible-alert-infected-susceptible (SAIS) model, where the strength coefficient between two layers is defined to characterize the tendency and intensity of information dissemination. We find that information dissemination can increase the epidemic threshold, however, more information transmission cannot promote vaccination. Specifically, increasing information dissemination even leads to a decline of the vaccination equilibrium and raises the final infection density. Moreover, we study the impact of strength coefficient and individual sensitivity on social cost, and unveil the role of information dissemination in controlling the epidemic with numerical simulations.