Communication-Inspired Model of Epidemics

We propose a novel communication-inspired model of contagion phenomena and mitigation strategies by establishing the one-to-one correspondence between the essential components comprising information transmission and epidemic spreading. We then present the notions of normalized ensemble-average prevalence (NEAP) and prevalence delay profile (PDP) to characterize the relative impact and time difference of all the epidemic spreading paths, which are analogous to the classical description methods of path loss and power delay profile in communications. The proposed framework provides an intuitive, coherent, and efficient approach for characterization of the disease outbreaks by applying the well-established communication theories as the analytical lens.