Disease invasion on community networks with environmental pathogen movement

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Network Science
• Mathematical Biology

Background:

• Disease spread in interconnected communities is a significant public health concern.
• Environmental pathogen movement plays a crucial role in disease transmission dynamics.
• Understanding disease invasion requires modeling complex network interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine disease invasion dynamics within a network of interconnected communities.
• To determine how environmental pathogen movement influences disease spread.
• To identify factors contributing to disease invasibility in a connected system.

Main Methods:

• Modeling communities using the susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) framework with an environmental pathogen reservoir.
• Representing community connections using a weighted, directed graph to model pathogen movement.
• Computing the basic reproduction number (R(0)) via Laurent series expansion to assess disease invasibility.

Main Results:

• Disease invasibility is determined by the domain's basic reproduction number (R(0)).
• When pathogen movement is rapid relative to decay, R(0) depends on community characteristics weighted by network structure.
• The clustering of disease 'hot spots' significantly influences disease invasibility, with clustering facilitating invasion.

Conclusions:

• Network structure and pathogen movement dynamics are critical for disease invasion.
• The spatial clustering of disease hot spots can enhance disease spread.
• Mathematical modeling, particularly using R(0) and network analysis, provides insights into disease invasion patterns.