Risk perception and disease spread on social networks

Abstract

Social networks have become vital in the modeling of disease spread in populations, but so far these models have failed to take into account human risk perception: the fact that human beings, when aware of a disease outbreak, will take precautions to reduce their susceptibility. We study an existing model of risk perception on a social network and note the changes in the efficiency of the disease spread to previous studies that failed to take human behavior into account. We also discuss the accounts that need to be taken into consideration in the construction of accurate models of the population.