Vacci Nation — Modeling the Outbreak of an Influenza Strain in a Population with Different Belief Groups

Abstract

In this thesis, the outbreak of an influenza strain is modeled for a community that consists of two belief groups regarding vaccination (“Trusters” and “Skepticals” with different costs of vaccination). Both groups form sub-groups of the community and are assumed to resemble small-world networks, which are further combined.

Relying on an SIVR-model, the disease spreads according to the infection rate and the decisions of the individual agents. The agents follow a simple game theoretical model in order to arrive at a decision to vaccinate, taking into account the forecast for a certain period, which is updated regularly.

The main emphasis is being placed on investigating different distributions of the communities and the effect this has on the disease outbreak. Besides, the outcomes of changing the agent-specific parameters, costs of vaccination, costs of infection and time-horizon, are analysed as well. The results are in line with and confirm previous research. Especially, it is obtained that uptake levels are more sensitive to the share of trusters in the community, compared to the cost-ratios of the individual communities.

Group work with Nicolas Antunes Morgado, Benjamin Gundersen and Julius Siebenaller.

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