The impact of contact patterns on epidemic dynamics

In social networks, individuals have relationships with their neighbor nodes (acquaintance contacts) and also randomly contact other nodes without direct links (stranger contacts). However, these two types of contact patterns are rarely considered together. In this paper, we propose a modified SIS (Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible) model in which a node not only contacts neighbor nodes but also randomly contacts other nodes in the network. We implement the model on a scale-free network and study the influence of different types of contact patterns on epidemic dynamics as well as three possible strategies people adopt when disease outbreaks. The results show that a greater preference for acquaintance contacts makes a disease outbreak less likely. Moreover, the best protective strategy to control the disease is to adjust both the contact number and the contact pattern. In addition, the epidemic is more likely to be controlled when individuals take more information into consideration.