Optimal intervention campaign to combat anti-vaccine social contagion and contain epidemic spread

Abstract

Vaccine misinformation is a significant driver of vaccine hesitancy,spreading within social networks as anti-vaccine social contagion.This potentially causes larger disease outbreaks due to the clustering of unprotected individuals influenced by this contagion, who may then choose to remain unvaccinated. In this study, through a coupled agent-based model that integrates vaccine opinions and disease diffusion processes,we design an optimal counter-campaign that spreads positive vaccine information to counteract vaccine misinformation and ultimately suppress the spread of an epidemic. We demonstrate that targeting individuals with anti-vaccine neighbors in their social networks can effectively contain the spread of negative influence when interventions are implemented at early stages. Conversely, once anti-vaccine opinion adopters begin forming larger clusters within the network, shielding bridging regions between clusters becomes crucial in restricting the growth of anti-vaccine communities and thereby controlling the spread of epidemics.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Rebecca Hoyle: orcid.org/0000-0002-1645-1071

ORCID for Michael Head: orcid.org/0000-0003-1189-0531

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