Behavioral responses to risk promote vaccinating high‐contact individuals first
Name
System Dynamics Review - 2022 - Rahmandad - Behavioral responses to risk promote vaccinating high‐contact individuals first.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
921.23 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7a67520276f39c78eb70066984a76863
Author(s)
Rahmandad, Hazhir
Date Issued
2022
Journal
System Dynamics Review
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Rahmandad, Hazhir. 2022. "Behavioral responses to risk promote vaccinating high‐contact individuals first." System Dynamics Review, 38 (3).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
How should communities prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations? Prior studies found that prioritizing the elderly and most vulnerable minimizes deaths. However, prior research has ignored how behavioral responses to risk of disease endogenously change transmission rates. We show that incorporating risk-driven behavioral responses enhances fit to data and may change prioritization to vaccinating high-contact individuals. Behavioral responses matter because deaths grow exponentially until communities are compelled to reduce contacts, with deaths stabilizing at levels that oblige higher-contact groups to sufficiently cut their interactions and slow transmissions. More lives may be saved by vaccinating and taking those high-contact groups out of transmission chains earlier because the remaining groups will take more precautions while waiting for their turn for vaccination. These findings are especially important considering the need for further vaccination in many countries, the emergence of new variants, and the expected challenge of distributing new vaccines in the coming months and years. © 2022 The Author. System Dynamics Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of System Dynamics Society.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/SDR.1714
