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Heterogeneity in epidemic models and its effect on the spread of infection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

Håkan Andersson  and
Tom Britton
Håkan Andersson*
Affiliation:
Stockholm University
Tom Britton*
Affiliation:
Uppsala University
*
∗Postal address: Mathematical Statistics, Department of Mathematics, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Email address: [email protected].
∗∗Postal address: Department of Mathematics, Uppsala University, S-751 06 Uppsala, Sweden.
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Abstract

We first study an epidemic amongst a population consisting of individuals with the same infectivity but with varying susceptibilities to the disease. The asymptotic final epidemic size is compared with the corresponding size for a homogeneous population. Then we group a heterogeneous population into households, assuming very high infectivity within households, and investigate how the global infection pressure is affected by rearranging individuals between the households. In both situations considered, it turns out that whether or not homogenizing the individuals or households will result in an increased spread of infection actually depends on the infectiousness of the disease.

Keywords

Epidemic modelheterogeneous populationtotal sizehousehold population

MSC classification

Primary: 92D30: Epidemiology
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Applied Probability , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 651 - 661
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1998 

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Footnotes

T.B. supported by The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.

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