Pulsating-campaigns of human prophylaxis driven by risk perception palliate oscillations of direct contact transmitted diseases

TL;DR

This paper models how human risk perception-driven behavioral responses can cause oscillations in disease prevalence and proposes pulsating intervention campaigns as more effective than continuous ones in reducing these oscillations.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled decision-behavior and epidemic model showing how risk perception influences disease dynamics and demonstrates the effectiveness of pulsating campaigns in controlling oscillations.

Findings

Behavioral responses can induce sustained epidemic oscillations.

Pulsating campaigns outperform continuous interventions in reducing oscillations.

Coupled models reveal the importance of behavioral dynamics in epidemic control.

Abstract

Human behavioral responses play an important role in the impact of disease outbreaks and yet they are often overlooked in epidemiological models. Understanding to what extent behavioral changes determine the outcome of spreading epidemics is essential to design effective intervention policies. Here we explore, analytically, the interplay between the personal decision to protect oneself from infection and the spreading of an epidemic. We do so by coupling a decision game based on the perceived risk of infection with a Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible model. Interestingly, we find that the simple decision on whether to protect oneself is enough to modify the course of the epidemics, by generating sustained steady oscillations in the prevalence. We deem these oscillations detrimental, and propose two intervention policies aimed at modifying behavioral patterns to help alleviate them. Surprisingly, we find that pulsating campaigns, compared to continuous ones, are more effective in diminishing such oscillations.