TY - JOUR
T1 - A game dynamic model for vaccine skeptics and vaccine believers
T2 - Measles as an example
AU - Shim, Eunha
AU - Grefenstette, John J.
AU - Albert, Steven M.
AU - Cakouros, Brigid E.
AU - Burke, Donald S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful for the support by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences MIDAS grant 5U54GM088491-02 . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
PY - 2012/2/21
Y1 - 2012/2/21
N2 - Widespread avoidance of Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccination (MMR), with a consequent increase in the incidence of major measles outbreaks, demonstrates that the effectiveness of vaccination programs can be thwarted by the public misperceptions of vaccine risk. By coupling game theory and epidemic models, we examine vaccination choice among populations stratified into two behavioral groups: vaccine skeptics and vaccine believers. The two behavioral groups are assumed to be heterogeneous with respect to their perceptions of vaccine and infection risks. We demonstrate that the pursuit of self-interest among vaccine skeptics often leads to vaccination levels that are suboptimal for a population, even if complete coverage is achieved among vaccine believers. The demand for measles vaccine across populations driven by individual self-interest was found to be more sensitive to the proportion of vaccine skeptics than to the extent to which vaccine skeptics misperceive the risk of vaccine. Furthermore, as the number of vaccine skeptics increases, the probability of infection among vaccine skeptics increases initially, but it decreases once the vaccine skeptics begin receiving the vaccination, if both behavioral groups are vaccinated according to individual self-interest. Our results show that the discrepancy between the coverages of measles vaccine that are driven by self-interest and those driven by population interest becomes larger when the cost of vaccination increases. This research illustrates the importance of public education on vaccine safety and infection risk in order to maintain vaccination levels that are sufficient to maintain herd immunity.
AB - Widespread avoidance of Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccination (MMR), with a consequent increase in the incidence of major measles outbreaks, demonstrates that the effectiveness of vaccination programs can be thwarted by the public misperceptions of vaccine risk. By coupling game theory and epidemic models, we examine vaccination choice among populations stratified into two behavioral groups: vaccine skeptics and vaccine believers. The two behavioral groups are assumed to be heterogeneous with respect to their perceptions of vaccine and infection risks. We demonstrate that the pursuit of self-interest among vaccine skeptics often leads to vaccination levels that are suboptimal for a population, even if complete coverage is achieved among vaccine believers. The demand for measles vaccine across populations driven by individual self-interest was found to be more sensitive to the proportion of vaccine skeptics than to the extent to which vaccine skeptics misperceive the risk of vaccine. Furthermore, as the number of vaccine skeptics increases, the probability of infection among vaccine skeptics increases initially, but it decreases once the vaccine skeptics begin receiving the vaccination, if both behavioral groups are vaccinated according to individual self-interest. Our results show that the discrepancy between the coverages of measles vaccine that are driven by self-interest and those driven by population interest becomes larger when the cost of vaccination increases. This research illustrates the importance of public education on vaccine safety and infection risk in order to maintain vaccination levels that are sufficient to maintain herd immunity.
KW - Epidemiological model
KW - Game theory
KW - Measles
KW - Vaccine refusal
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.11.005
DO - 10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.11.005
M3 - Article
C2 - 22108239
AN - SCOPUS:83455225575
VL - 295
SP - 194
EP - 203
JO - Journal of Theoretical Biology
JF - Journal of Theoretical Biology
SN - 0022-5193
ER -