Network theory may explain the vulnerability of medieval human settlements to the Black Death pandemic.
Network theory may explain the vulnerability of medieval human settlements to the Black Death pandemic.
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DOI：
10.1038/srep43467
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发表时间：
2017-03-06
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Verdú M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gómez JM;Verdú M
流行病可以通过沿着交通工具和社交网络传播，在广大地区蔓延，成为大流行病。两个网络属性，传递性（当一个节点连接到另外两个节点时，这些节点也直接连接在它们之间）和中心性（与网络中其他节点连接的数量和强度），与病原体的传播动力学广泛相关。在这里，我们研究网络中心性和传递性如何影响脆弱性的疾病，人类历史上最具破坏性的流行病之一，14世纪鼠疫大流行称为黑死病的人口。我们发现，在控制了城市空间位置和疾病到达时间后，中心性和传递性值都较高的城市受到鼠疫的影响更严重。一项模拟研究表明，这种关联是由于具有高传递性的中心城市经历了更多的外源性再感染。我们的研究提供了一个简单的方法来识别流行病网络中的热点。把我们的努力集中在这些脆弱的节点上，可以提高我们控制致命流行病的能力，从而节省时间和资源。
Epidemics can spread across large regions becoming pandemics by flowing along transportation and social networks. Two network attributes, transitivity (when a node is connected to two other nodes that are also directly connected between them) and centrality (the number and intensity of connections with the other nodes in the network), are widely associated with the dynamics of transmission of pathogens. Here we investigate how network centrality and transitivity influence vulnerability to diseases of human populations by examining one of the most devastating pandemic in human history, the fourteenth century plague pandemic called Black Death. We found that, after controlling for the city spatial location and the disease arrival time, cities with higher values of both centrality and transitivity were more severely affected by the plague. A simulation study indicates that this association was due to central cities with high transitivity undergo more exogenous re-infections. Our study provides an easy method to identify hotspots in epidemic networks. Focusing our effort in those vulnerable nodes may save time and resources by improving our ability of controlling deadly epidemics.