Research Article
Minimizing the Social Cost of an Epidemic
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-30373-9_41, author={Elizabeth Bodine-Baron and Subhonmesh Bose and Babak Hassibi and Adam Wierman}, title={Minimizing the Social Cost of an Epidemic}, proceedings={Game Theory for Networks. 2nd International ICST Conference, GAMENETS 2011, Shanghai, China, April 16-18, 2011, Revised Selected Papers}, proceedings_a={GAMENETS}, year={2012}, month={10}, keywords={Epidemic immunization information cascade random matrix theory generalized random graphs}, doi={10.1007/978-3-642-30373-9_41} }- Elizabeth Bodine-Baron
Subhonmesh Bose
Babak Hassibi
Adam Wierman
Year: 2012
Minimizing the Social Cost of an Epidemic
GAMENETS
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-30373-9_41
Abstract
In this paper we quantify the total cost of an epidemic spreading through a social network, accounting for both the immunization and disease costs. Previous research has typically focused on determining the optimal strategy to limit the lifetime of a disease, without considering the cost of such strategies. In the large graph limit, we calculate the exact expected disease cost for a general random graph, and we illustrate it for the specific example of an Erdös-Rényi network. We also give an upper bound on the expected disease cost for finite-size graphs, and show through simulation that the upper bound is tight for Erdös-Rényi networks and graphs with exponential degree distributions. Finally, we study how to optimally perform a one-shot immunization to minimize the social cost of a disease, including both the cost of the disease and the cost of immunization.