Effects of disease characteristics and population distribution on dynamics of epidemic spreading among residential sites

We investigate the spreading processes of epidemic diseases among many residential sites for different disease characteristics and different population distributions by constructing and solving a set of integrodifferential equations for the evolutions of position-dependent infected and infective rates, taking into account the infection processes both within a single site and among different sites. In a spreading process the states of an individual include susceptible (S), incubative (I), active (A) and recovered (R) states. Although the transition from S to I mainly depends on the active rate, the susceptible rate and the connectivity among individuals, the transitions from I to A and from A to R are determined by intrinsic characteristics of disease development in individuals. We adopt incubation and infection periods to describe the intrinsic features of the disease. By numerically solving the equations we find that the asymptotic behavior of the spreading crucially depends on the infection period and the population under affection of an active individual. Other factors, such as the structure of network and the popular distribution, play less important roles. The study may provide useful information for analyzing the key parameters affecting the dynamics and the asymptotic behavior.