Investigating the Interpersonal Awareness Impact the Spread of Diseases Within a Dual-Layer Epidemic Dynamics That Incorporates Vaccination Approaches

This study proposes a single-season dual-layer susceptible–infectious–recovered–unaware–aware–Vaccinated (SIR-UAV) model that captures the simultaneous dynamics of disease transmission, individual decision-making, and awareness diffusion within a single time scale—distinct from previously published models that consider repeated or seasonal outbreaks. Individuals are categorized as either unaware or aware, where aware individuals possess information that reduces their susceptibility, while unaware individuals remain fully vulnerable. Awareness spreads through physical encounters (e.g., interaction with infected or aware individuals) and virtual sources such as social media, television, and newspapers. Both aware and unaware individuals can receive vaccination, acquiring strong immunity. The model includes susceptible, infected, recovered, and vaccinated compartments in a positively bounded and well-mixed population, with further stratification by awareness status. By modeling the interactions between these groups, the framework evaluates the impact of awareness campaigns and vaccination strategies on mitigating disease spread during a single epidemic season. The model also incorporates a vaccination game using evolutionary game theory (EGT), where the vaccination rate is influenced by the cost of vaccination and the number of infected individuals. We depicted the influence of social policies on the final epidemic size (FES), vaccine coverage (VC), and aware susceptible individuals (ASI). Mathematical analysis shows that effective awareness reduces the spreading of infection and increases VC. Effective vaccine removes the disease from society within an early period for affordable vaccine costs. Surprisingly, this study also shows more vaccinations increase infections due to lack of sufficient efficiency. This study also shows the increased awareness rate increases infection within the aware population due to false or ineffective awareness. Again, despite the vaccine cost increases, the infected number reduces. Due to effective awareness, people focus on awareness, avoiding vaccinations.