Vaccination dynamics of age-structured populations in higher-order social networks

Abstract: Voluntary vaccination is essential to protect oneself from infection and suppress the spread of infectious diseases. Voluntary vaccination behavior is influenced by factors such as age and interaction patterns. Differences in health consciousness and risk perception based on age result in heterogeneity in vaccination behavior among different age groups. Higher-order interactions among individuals of various ages facilitate the dissemination of vaccine-related information, further influencing vaccination intentions. To investigate the impact of individual age and interaction patterns on vaccination behavior, we propose an epidemic-game coevolution model in which age structure and higher-order interactions are considered. Combining the theoretical analysis of epidemic-game coevolution, this work calculates the evolutionarily stable strategies and dynamic equilibrium based on imitation dynamics in the well-mixed population. Extensive numerical experiments show that infants and the elderly exhibit conservative attitudes towards vaccination, and the vaccination levels of these two groups have no significant impact on the vaccination behavior of other age groups. The vaccination behavior of children is highly active, while the vaccination behavior of adults depends on the relative cost of vaccination. The increase in vaccination levels among children and adults leads to a decrease in vaccination levels in other groups. Furthermore, the infants exhibit the lowest level of vaccination, while the children have the highest vaccination rate. Higher-order interactions significantly enhance vaccination levels among children and adults.