Contact Network Modeling of Flu Epidemics

Using actual census, family and age structure, land-use and population-mobility data, we develop a stochastic cellular automata on a social contact network to study the propagation of influenza epidemics in the UK. In particular, we address age dependency and obtain the contact networks through the analysis of location co-presence. We analyze infection propensities as well as vaccination techniques. The results indicate the relative merits of different vaccination strategies combined with early detection without resorting to mass vaccination of a population.