Investigating the Trade-off between Infections and Social Interactions Using a Compact Model of Endemic Infections on Networks

TL;DR

This paper explores how explicit network structures influence the optimal balance between infection spread and social interactions, revealing that contact heterogeneity significantly impacts this trade-off.

Contribution

It introduces a low-dimensional dynamical system model to analyze infection-interaction trade-offs on networks, highlighting the role of contact heterogeneity.

Findings

Network heterogeneity affects optimal contact levels.

Explicit network modeling alters trade-off outcomes.

Heterogeneous contacts influence epidemic dynamics.

Abstract

In many epidemiological and ecological contexts, there is a trade-off between infections and interactions. This arises because the links between individuals capable of spreading infections are also often associated with beneficial activities. Here, we consider how the presence of explicit network structure changes the optimal solution of a class of infection-interaction trade-offs. In order to do this, we develop and analyse a low-dimensional dynamical system approximating the network SIS epidemic. We find that network structure in the form of heterogeneous numbers of contacts can have a significant impact on the optimal number of contacts that comes out of a trade-off model.