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Modeling the Interplay Between Human Behavior and the Spread of Infectious Diseases pp 255–266Cite as

Impact of Vaccine Behavior on the Resurgence of Measles

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Abstract

Widespread avoidance of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination (MMR) demonstrates that the effectiveness of vaccination programs can be thwarted by public misperceptions of vaccine risk. By coupling game theory and epidemic models, we examine vaccination choice among populations stratified into 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. 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. This research illustrates the importance of public education on vaccine safety and infection risk in order to achieve vaccination levels that are sufficient to maintain herd immunity.

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Acknowledgments

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 130 DeSoto Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, PA, USA

    Eunha Shim & Donald S. Burke

  2. Department of Biostatistics, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 130 DeSoto Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, PA, USA

    John J. Grefenstette

  3. Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 130 DeSoto Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, PA, USA

    Steven M. Albert & Brigid E. Cakouros

  4. School of Arts and Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, 15260, PA, USA

    Larissa Bohn

Authors
  1. Eunha Shim
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  2. John J. Grefenstette
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  3. Steven M. Albert
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  4. Brigid E. Cakouros
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  5. Larissa Bohn
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  6. Donald S. Burke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eunha Shim .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa, Via Ridolfi 10, Pisa, 56124, Italy

    Piero Manfredi

  2. , Department of Experimental Oncology, European Institute of Oncology, Via Ripamonti 435, Milan, 20141, Italy

    Alberto D'Onofrio

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Shim, E., Grefenstette, J.J., Albert, S.M., Cakouros, B.E., Bohn, L., Burke, D.S. (2013). Impact of Vaccine Behavior on the Resurgence of Measles. In: Manfredi, P., D'Onofrio, A. (eds) Modeling the Interplay Between Human Behavior and the Spread of Infectious Diseases. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5474-8_16

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