Effect of homophily and correlation of beliefs on COVID-19 and general infectious disease outbreaks.
PLoS One
; 16(12): e0260973, 2021.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1546976
ABSTRACT
Contact between people with similar opinions and characteristics occurs at a higher rate than among other people, a phenomenon known as homophily. The presence of clusters of unvaccinated people has been associated with increased incidence of infectious disease outbreaks despite high population-wide vaccination rates. The epidemiological consequences of homophily regarding other beliefs as well as correlations among beliefs or circumstances are poorly understood, however. Here, we use a simple compartmental disease model as well as a more complex COVID-19 model to study how homophily and correlation of beliefs and circumstances in a social interaction network affect the probability of disease outbreak and COVID-19-related mortality. We find that the current social context, characterized by the presence of homophily and correlations between who vaccinates, who engages in risk reduction, and individual risk status, corresponds to a situation with substantially worse disease burden than in the absence of heterogeneities. In the presence of an effective vaccine, the effects of homophily and correlation of beliefs and circumstances become stronger. Further, the optimal vaccination strategy depends on the degree of homophily regarding vaccination status as well as the relative level of risk mitigation high- and low-risk individuals practice. The developed methods are broadly applicable to any investigation in which node attributes in a graph might reasonably be expected to cluster or exhibit correlations.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Attitude to Health
/
Disease Outbreaks
/
Social Interaction
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Humans
/
Middle aged
Language:
English
Journal:
PLoS One
Journal subject:
Science
/
Medicine
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Journal.pone.0260973
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