This project develops a mathematical model of how anti-vaccination opinions spread and persist through echo chambers, and tests it against real vaccination data.
Fitting the model to measles and meningococcal vaccination coverage in districts across Germany shows that strong echo chambers explain why anti-vaccination opinions persist. We use the model to compare policies aimed at increasing vaccine uptake.
Vaccination hesitancy is a major obstacle to achieving and maintaining herd immunity, making it important for public health authorities to understand how anti-vaccine opinions spread and persist in a population.
We introduce a mathematical model of opinion dynamics with spatial reinforcement, capable of generating echo chambers - opinion bubbles in which information incompatible with one's entrenched worldview is disregarded. The model is analyzed both in a deterministic limit and in a weak-effects limit, identifying bifurcations, phase transitions, and its long-run invariant measure.
Fitting the model to measles and meningococcal vaccination coverage across districts in Germany shows that strong echo chambers explain the occurrence and persistence of anti-vaccination opinion. The model is then used to predict and compare the effectiveness of different policies aimed at shifting opinion dynamics to increase vaccine uptake.
Publication in peer-reviewed journal
