Estimating the Impact of Public and Private Strategies for Controlling an Epidemic: A Multi-Agent Approach

This paper describes a novel approach based on a combination of techniques in AI, parallel computing, and network science to address an important problem in social sciences and public health: planning and responding in the event of epidemics. Spread of infectious disease is an important societal problem – human behavior, social networks, and the civil infrastructures all play a crucial role in initiating and controlling such epidemic processes. We specifically consider the economic and social effects of realistic interventions proposed and adopted by public health officials and behavioral changes of private citizens in the event of a “flulike” epidemic. Our results provide new insights for developing robust public policies that can prove useful for