Article,
Epidemic processes in complex networks
Reviews of Modern Physics, 87 (3): 925--979 (Aug 31, 2015)
DOI: 10.1103/RevModPhys.87.925
Abstract
In recent years the research community has accumulated overwhelming evidence
for the emergence of complex and heterogeneous connectivity patterns in a wide
range of biological and socio-technical systems. The complex properties of real
world networks have a profound impact on the behavior of equilibrium and
non-equilibrium phenomena occurring in various systems, and the study of
epidemic spreading is central to our understanding of the unfolding of
dynamical processes in complex networks. The theoretical analysis of epidemic
spreading in heterogeneous networks requires the development of novel
analytical frameworks, and it has produced results of conceptual and practical
relevance. Here we present a coherent and comprehensive review of the vast
research activity concerning epidemic processes, detailing the successful
theoretical approaches as well as making their limits and assumptions clear.
Physicists, epidemiologists, computer and social scientists share a common
interest in studying epidemic spreading and rely on very similar models for the
description of the diffusion of pathogens, knowledge, and innovation. For this
reason, while we focus on the main results and the paradigmatic models in
infectious disease modeling, we also present the major results concerning
generalized social contagion processes. Finally we outline the research
activity at the forefront in the study of epidemic spreading in co-evolving and
time-varying networks.
