Hesitancy, Awareness and Vaccination: A Computational Analysis on Complex Networks

TL;DR

This paper uses computational models and network simulations to analyze how social influence affects COVID-19 vaccination decisions and identifies key barriers and drivers to improve vaccination strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical social contagion model incorporating peer influence to study vaccination hesitancy and acceptance dynamics.

Findings

Peer influence significantly affects vaccination decisions.

Identified barriers and drivers of vaccine hesitancy.

Estimated time to vaccinate a large population segment.

Abstract

Considering the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), around the world several vaccines are being developed. Till now, these vaccines are the most effective way to reduce the high burden on the global health infrastructure. However, the public acceptance towards vaccination is a crucial and pressing problem for health authorities. This study has been designed to determine the parameters affecting the decisions of common individuals towards COVID-19 vaccine. In our study, using the platforms of compartmental model and network simulation, we categorize people and observe their motivation towards vaccination in a mathematical social contagion process. In our model, we consider peer influence as an important factor in this dynamics, and study how individuals are influencing each other for vaccination. The efficiency of the vaccination process is estimated by the period of time required to vaccinate a substantial fraction of total population. We discovered the major barriers and drivers of this dynamics, and concluded that it is required to formulate specific strategies by the healthcare workers which could be more effective for the undecided and vaccine hesitant group of people.