Exact solutions of epidemic models on networks

M. E. J. Newman

Published 2002-01-24Version 1

The study of social networks, and in particular the spread of disease on networks, has attracted considerable recent attention in the physics community. In this paper, we show that a large class of standard epidemiological models, the so-called susceptible/infective/removed models, and many of their generalizations, can be solved exactly on a wide variety of networks. Solutions are possible for cases with heterogeneous or correlated probabilities of transmission, cases incorporating vaccination, and cases in which the network has complex structure of various kinds. We confirm the correctness of our solutions by comparison with computer simulations of epidemics propagating on the corresponding networks.