Modeling the containment behavior of interacting populations in response to an epidemic

ABSTRACT

Epidemic disease outbreaks are among the major threats to the sustenance and health of human societies, as evidenced by the crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people have lost their lives because of this pandemic, and the impact of it on the global economy has also been severe. Modeling the infectious disease outbreak in search of the set of optimal strategies to control the epidemics can help the public health policy makers to better decide and design relevant policies. In this study, spatial games under public goods policies are used to model the social response of different interacting populations to a new epidemic, where the decision makers are not individuals but societies. This approach is of great importance for policy evaluation, since there are usually not just individuals who decide to change their behavior in response to an epidemic, but societies who affect the change of individuals behaviors by setting relevant health policies, standards and regulations. © 2021 IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2021. All rights reserved.