Education Commons^™

Connectivity, Reproduction Number, And Mobility Interact To Determine Communities’ Epidemiological Superspreader Potential In A Metapopulation Network, Brandon Lieberthal, Allison M. Gardner

School of Biology & Ecology

Disease epidemic outbreaks on human metapopulation networks are often driven by a small number of superspreader nodes, which are primarily responsible for spreading the disease throughout the network. Superspreader nodes typically are characterized either by their locations within the network, by their degree of connectivity and centrality, or by their habitat suitability for the disease, described by their reproduction number (R). Here we introduce a model that considers simultaneously the effects of network properties and R on superspreaders, as opposed to previous research which considered each factor separately. This type of model is applicable to diseases for which …