A multi-agent model to study epidemic spreading and vaccination strategies in an urban-like environment
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Applied Network Science
RESEARCH
Open Access
A multi-agent model to study epidemic spreading and vaccination strategies in an urban-like environment Matthieu Nadini1 , Lorenzo Zino1,2 , Alessandro Rizzo3,4* and Maurizio Porfiri1,5* *Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, New York University Tandon School of Engineering, 11201 Brooklyn, USA 3 Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy 5 Department of Biomedical Engineering, New York University Tandon School of Engineering, 11201 Brooklyn, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Abstract Worldwide urbanization calls for a deeper understanding of epidemic spreading within urban environments. Here, we tackle this problem through an agent-based model, in which agents move in a two-dimensional physical space and interact according to proximity criteria. The planar space comprises several locations, which represent bounded regions of the urban space. Based on empirical evidence, we consider locations of different density and place them in a core-periphery structure, with higher density in the central areas and lower density in the peripheral ones. Each agent is assigned to a base location, which represents where their home is. Through analytical tools and numerical techniques, we study the formation mechanism of the network of contacts, which is characterized by the emergence of heterogeneous interaction patterns. We put forward an extensive simulation campaign to analyze the onset and evolution of contagious diseases spreading in the urban environment. Interestingly, we find that, in the presence of a core-periphery structure, the diffusion of the disease is not affected by the time agents spend inside their base location before leaving it, but it is influenced by their motion outside their base location: a strong tendency to return to the base location favors the spreading of the disease. A simplified one-dimensional version of the model is examined to gain analytical insight into the spreading process and support our numerical findings. Finally, we investigate the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns, supporting the intuition that vaccination in central and dense areas should be prioritized. Keywords: Agent-based model, core-periphery structure, Epidemics, Mobility, Temporal network
Introduction The number of people living in urban areas has already exceeded 4 billions and it is estimated to reach 7 billions by 2050 (Ritchie and Roser 2020). Global urbanization poses new challenges in different sectors, ranging from transportation to energy supply, environmental degradation, and healthcare (Cohen 2006). Among these challenges, understanding how urban environments shape the evolution of epidemic outbreaks and designing effective containment strategies have recently drawn considerable attention from researchers and media. Paradigmatic are the examples of recent outbreaks, such © The Author(s). 2020 Open Acc
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