Title: Behavioural Epidemiology of populations and… policymakers a talk based on very simple models
Résumé : Behavioural Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases (BE) [1,2] is a relatively new discipline that initially aimed at modelling the role of human behaviour in the spread and in the control of Infectious Diseases. Indeed, classical behaviour-free mathematical models based on statistical mechanics are often not adequate to describe the complex challenges induced by the Post-Trust Society (a sociological phenomenon interplaying with but distinct from the Post-Truth Society). In presence of a widespread vaccine hesitancy, for example, it is fundamental to model the dynamics of vaccine propensity (VP) that is determined by the out-balance between information on the disease spread and information and rumours on (real and imaginary) vaccine-related side effects. Of course, evolutionary Game Theory is a key tool [3,4]. However, a strong limitation of the first phases of BE was its focus on the behaviour of citizens. This is not enough: the actions and behaviour of the Public Health policymakers must also be modelled [6,5]. In particular, this emerged in the study of vaccine awareness campaigns [5] and it was outstandingly showed by the current pandemics. Finally, linked to the “Post Trust Society” and “Post Truth Society” we will briefly discuss how to go beyond other limitations of BE.
Bibliography
[1] P. Manfredi and A. d’Onofrio. Modeling the interplay between human behavior and the spread of infectious diseases. Springer, New York, 2013.
[2] Wang, Z., Bauch, C. T., Bhattacharyya, S., d’Onofrio, A., Manfredi, P., Perc, M., Perra, N, Salathe, M, Zhao, D. (2016). Statistical physics of vaccination, Physics Reports 664, 1–-113.
[3] Bauch, C. T. (2005). Imitation dynamics predict vaccinating behaviour. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 272(1573), 1669–1675
[4] A. d’Onofrio, P. Manfredi, P. Poletti (2011) The impact of vaccine side effects on the natural history of immunization programmes: an imitation-game approach., J Theor Biol 273, 63–71.
[5] A. d’Onofrio, P. Manfredi, P. Poletti (2012) The interplay of public intervention and private choices in determining the outcome of vaccination programmes, PLoS ONE 7(10), Article n. e45653.
[6] A. Carrozzo-Magli, A d’Onofrio and A. Manfredi (2020) Deteriorated Covid19 control due to delayed lockdown resulting from strategic interactions between Governments and oppositions. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.20112946v1
