CNLD Seminar with Tamer Oraby

Abstract: Vaccination uptake is influenced not only by epidemiological risks but also by social and personal factors such as social norms and cognitive biases. In this talk, I will discuss the development of disease–behavior models that couple SIR dynamics of childhood infectious diseases with behavioral game theory, evolving from classical imitation dynamics of rational agents to boundedly rational agents with noisy utilities. Those models incorporate prospect-theoretic utilities and reinforcement–learning–inspired elements. They form a new disease–behavior–cognition (DBC) framework with novel equilibria and interesting stability conditions. Additionally, including transmission and perception noise results in stochastic dynamics that reflect bounded rationality and reveal new stability regimes and disease extinction conditions. This work highlights the importance of social and educational interventions to increase and maintain vaccination acceptance.