2023/03/28 by M. Marvá, Marvá, M., E. Venturino +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Mathematics · Medicine · #COVID-19 epidemiological studies #Dynamical Systems (math.DS) #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Mathematics #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2303.15928
openalex publication_date 2023/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This work presents a model combining the simplest communicable and non-communicable disease models. The latter is, by far, the leading cause of sickness and death in the World, and introduces basal heterogeneity in populations where communicable diseases evolve. The model can be interpreted as a risk-structured model, another way of accounting for population heterogeneity. Our results show that considering the non-communicable disease (in the end, heterogeneous populations) allows the communicable disease to become endemic even if the basic reproduction number is less than 1. This feature is known as subcritical bifurcation. Furthermore, ignoring the non-communicable disease dynamics results in overestimating the reproduction number and, thus, giving wrong information about the actual number of infected individuals. We calculate sensitivity indices and derive interesting epidemic-control information.