Modeling the effects of psychological fear and media-induced awareness on the dynamics of infectious diseases

Abstract

The outbreak of an infectious disease in a community creates psychological fear in the population that stimulates the individuals to adopt appropriate behavioral changes to reduce the risk of contracting the infection. The awareness created by mass media is another important factor that motivates people to comply with the precautionary measures required to inhibit the transmission of disease. A study of the combined effects of psychological fear and media-induced awareness on the transmission dynamics of an infectious disease is crucial for designing strategies to control the spread of the infectious disease in a community. This work presents a mathematical model to assess the combined effects of fear and media advertisements on the dynamics of infectious diseases. The stability properties of the solutions of the proposed system are investigated. It is found that if the growth rate of media advertisements exceeds a threshold value, the system enters into limit cycle oscillations from stable equilibrium via Hopf-bifurcation. The amplitude of these periodic oscillations increases with the increase in the growth rate of media advertisements. An increase in the degree of fear in the community may dampen the amplitude of periodic oscillations and above a threshold value of the fear factor, the periodic oscillations die out and endemic equilibrium gets stabilized. It is also found that the high level of fear reduces the effect of the increase in the growth rate of media advertisements and the dissemination rate of awareness among susceptible individuals on the control of infection in the population. © 2024 American Institute of Mathematical Sciences. All rights reserved.