title: Adaptive human behavior in epidemiological models.
abstract: The science and management of infectious disease are entering a new stage. Increasingly public policy to manage epidemics focuses on motivating people, through social distancing policies, to alter their behavior to reduce contacts and reduce public disease risk. Person-to-person contacts drive human disease dynamics. People value such contacts and are willing to accept some disease risk to gain contact-related benefits. The cost-benefit trade-offs that shape contact behavior, and hence the course of epidemics, are often only implicitly incorporated in epidemiological models. This approach creates difficulty in parsing out the effects of adaptive behavior. We use an epidemiological-economic model of disease dynamics to explicitly model the trade-offs that drive person-to-person contact decisions. Results indicate that including adaptive human behavior significantly changes the predicted course of epidemics and that this inclusion has implications for parameter estimation and interpretation and for the development of social distancing policies. Acknowledging adaptive behavior requires a shift in thinking about epidemiological processes and parameters.
authors: School of Life Sciences and ecoSERVICES Group, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501, USA. Eli.Fenichel@asu.edu
authors: Eli P
authors: EP
authors: Fenichel
authors: Carlos
authors: C
authors: Castillo-Chavez
authors: M G
authors: MG
authors: Ceddia
authors: Gerardo
authors: G
authors: Chowell
authors: Paula A Gonzalez
authors: PA
authors: Parra
authors: Graham J
authors: GJ
authors: Hickling
authors: Garth
authors: G
authors: Holloway
authors: Richard
authors: R
authors: Horan
authors: Benjamin
authors: B
authors: Morin
authors: Charles
authors: C
authors: Perrings
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Springborn
authors: Leticia
authors: L
authors: Velazquez
authors: Cristina
authors: C
authors: Villalobos
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001519:Behavior; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D018803:Models, Economic; D008960:Models, Psychological