Dynamics of opinion-disease coevolution in complex networks

Abstract

Against the backdrop of infectious disease outbreaks, individual-level opinions, contact behaviors, and disease transmission processes exhibit strong dynamic coupling. To clarify how opinion-driven contact formation shapes this coupled process, we propose a coevolution model on a two-layer network consisting of an opinion layer and a disease layer. The opinion layer describes information diffusion and opinion evolution, whereas the disease layer represents physical contacts and serves as the substrate for disease transmission. Different from existing models that assume static contact structures or neglect adaptive behavioral responses, our model establishes a bidirectional coupling between opinion evolution and disease transmission. This coupling is realized by an opinion-dependent contact formation mechanism that considers both individual opinions and pairwise similarity. Based on Monte Carlo simulations, we find that opinion-driven contact behavior suppresses and delays the epidemic peak, while reshaping the evolution of collective opinions. The infection rate primarily determines epidemic intensity, whereas the bounded confidence threshold controls the effective interaction range among individuals and thereby influences both opinion clustering and disease propagation. More importantly, the contact formation parameter governs the balance between opinion similarity and individual propensity in contact decisions. These findings reveal how opinion-driven contact formation links social cognition and disease transmission and shapes their coevolution in complex social systems.