https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00136-7
Effects of population mixing on the spread of SIR epidemics
1
Department of Mathematics, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, L2S 3A1, Canada
2
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada
Corresponding author: a hfuks@brocku.ca
Received:
17
October
2005
Revised:
11
December
2005
Published online:
12
April
2006
We study dynamics of spread of epidemics of SIR type in a realistic spatially-explicit geographical region, Southern and Central Ontario, using census data obtained from Statistics Canada, and examine the role of population mixing in epidemic processes. Our model incorporates the random nature of disease transmission, the discreteness and heterogeneity of distribution of host population.We find that introduction of a long-range interaction destroys spatial correlations very easily if neighbourhood sizes are homogeneous. For inhomogeneous neighbourhoods, very strong long-range coupling is required to achieve a similar effect. Our work applies to the spread of influenza during a single season.
PACS: 87.15.Aa – Theory and modeling; computer simulation / 89.75.-k – Complex systems / 05.10.-a – Computational methods in statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics / 02.70.-c – Computational techniques; simulations
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006
