A cyclic epidemic vaccination model: Embedding the attitude of individuals toward vaccination into SVIS dynamics through social interactions

Social norms have a profound influence on the perception of vaccination. People’s attitudes toward vaccination reflect their inherent recognition of the trade-off between vaccine acceptance and risk of infection. Here we model a new path of cyclic epidemic dynamics in vaccination aspects by considering the vaccine acceptance and fear of infection, where the social dynamics are embedded into the mathematical epidemiological framework. Besides the already established vaccination game models, we develop a model called the cyclic mean-field (CMF) model vis-à-vis the cyclic behavioral (CBH) model. In the CMF model, we presume that, like disease transmission, the propelling process for vaccination also occurs through human contact, and the deflating vaccination (low vaccination acceptance) is also integrated into the social interactions of individuals. We analytically investigate the model framework through a rich phase diagram. Extensive numerical simulation suggests that effective vaccination may meaningfully reduce the community risk of infection. Provided a proactive attitude toward vaccination and fair recognition of disease risk can be developed, the vaccination uptake can be enhanced, thereby resulting in reduced epidemic prevalence. Our investigation might provide a new epidemiological dynamics concept that considers the social dynamics embedded into the alteration rate of vaccination.