Incorporating individual health-protective decisions into disease transmission models: a mathematical framework.
other · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 21775324.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1098/rsif.2011.0325 and PMC identifier 3262418.
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Abstract
It is anticipated that the next generation of computational epidemic models will simulate both infectious disease transmission and dynamic human behaviour change. Individual agents within a simulation will not only infect one another, but will also have situational awareness and a decision algorithm that enables them to modify their behaviour. This paper develops such a model of behavioural response, presenting a mathematical interpretation of a well-known psychological model of individual decision making, the health belief model, suitable for incorporation within an agent-based disease-transmission model. We formalize the health belief model and demonstrate its application in modelling the prevalence of facemask use observed over the course of the 2003 Hong Kong SARS epidemic, a well-documented example of behaviour change in response to a disease outbreak.
Medical subject headings
- Decision Making
- Disease Outbreaks
- Health Behavior
- Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
- Masks
- Models, Psychological
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome