How the Game Theory Explains Disease Outbreaks
As discussed in class, the game theory is often used to model how a rational decision-maker will make their choice based on both their personal preference and the choices that the people surrounding them will make. The article entitled “Game theory can help prevent disease outbreaks” discusses the game theory in relation to the social dynamics of influenza vaccination. The game theory allows users to predict how an individual within a group will choose between multiple possibilities when this decision incorporates the choices made by the rest of the group. However, the downfall of making a decision based on how the group behaves is that it is difficult to pick the optimal strategy when you cannot accurately predict what the group will do.
When rational people decide whether to vaccinate themselves, they often weigh the pros and cons associated with doing so. Benefits of vaccination include protection against a disease that can kill you. Drawbacks of vaccination include the financial burdens of the medicine and administration, pain, and the poor initial response from the immune system. From the perspective of a family, parents may refuse to vaccinate their children because they assume that the rest of the population will get vaccinated and thus decrease their chances of contact with the disease. This choice, albeit selfish, may result in a win-win for the family – they avoid the cons of receiving vaccination and are still healthy. However, the problem with this family’s mindset is that a major outbreak of disease may occur if it is adopted by too many families in the population and everyone will suffer. This situation models the game theory because the best strategy for the individual family was to refuse vaccination, but this strategy harms the well-being of the group.
On the other hand, the optimal strategy for this situation can be demonstrated by the use of another concept discussed in class, Nash equilibrium. Nash Equilibrium assumes that rational actors will act in ways that maximize their own benefit. People often make choices based on their perceptions of risk, so one way to minimize disease outbreak is by discouraging travel by issuing news updates and warnings regarding the danger of travel to affected areas. However, such news updates act as mere suggestions for citizens to not travel and are not mandated by law. The article suggests that the most effective way for public authorities to prevent outbreaks is by using control measures such as travel bans. This way, people are prevented by law from making selfish choices that harm the well-being of society. While these findings are slightly discouraging because they suggest that people won’t do the right thing on their own, they are likely necessary to protect the well-being of society from the harmful choices of individuals.
Source: https://theconversation.com/game-theory-can-help-prevent-disease-outbreaks-102934