Percolation and epidemics in random clustered networks

The social networks that infectious diseases spread along are typically clustered. Because of the close relation between percolation and epidemic spread, the behavior of percolation in such networks gives insight into infectious disease dynamics. A number of authors have studied percolation or epidemics in clustered networks, but the networks often contain preferential contacts in high degree nodes. We introduce a class of random clustered networks and a class of random unclustered networks with the same preferential mixing. Percolation in the clustered networks reduces the component sizes and increases the epidemic threshold compared to the unclustered networks.

Figure 1

(Color online) A comparison of different network configurations. Assortative mixing reduces the epidemic threshold. Clustering reduces epidemic size. Simulations on clustered networks match the predictions.