Assessing Intervention Strategies for Non Homogeneous Populations Using a Closed Form Formula for R0

TL;DR

This paper develops a closed-form formula for the basic reproduction number R0 in non-homogeneous populations, enabling assessment of intervention strategies and vaccination plans tailored to population heterogeneity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel closed-form expression for individual R0 in non-homogeneous populations, improving the evaluation of intervention strategies.

Findings

Derived a closed-form formula for individual R0

Demonstrated how heterogeneity affects outbreak probability

Proposed an optimized vaccination strategy based on R0 calculations

Abstract

A general stochastic model for susceptible -> infective -> recovered (SIR) epidemics in non homogeneous populations is considered. The heterogeneity is a very important aspect here since it allows more realistic but also more complex models. The basic reproduction number $R_0$, an indication of the probability of an outbreak for homogeneous populations does not indicate the probability of an outbreak for non homogeneous models anymore, because it changes with the initially infected case. Therefore, we use "individual $R_0$" that is the expected number of secondary cases for a given initially infected individual. Thus, the effectiveness of intervention strategies can be assessed by their capability to reduce individual $R_0$ values. Also an intelligent vaccination plan for fully heterogeneous populations is proposed. It is based on the recursive calculation of individual R0 values.