Department of Radiology, University of Manitoba, GA216, HSC, 820 Sherbrook Street, Winnipeg, MB R3A 1R9, Canada.
BMC Public Health. 2009 Nov 18;9 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S13. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-9-S1-S13.
A major deficit of all approaches to epidemic modelling to date has been the need to approximate or guess at human behaviour in disease-transmission-related contexts. Avatars are generally human-like figures in virtual computer worlds controlled by human individuals.
We introduce the concept of a "havatar", which is a (human, avatar) pairing. Evidence is mounting that this pairing behaves in virtual contexts much like the human in the pairing might behave in analogous real-world contexts.
We propose that studies of havatars, in a virtual world, may give a realistic approximation of human behaviour in real-world contexts. If the virtual world approximates the real world in relevant details (geography, transportation, etc.), virtual epidemics in that world could accurately simulate real-world epidemics. Havatar modelling of epidemics therefore offers a complementary tool for tackling how best to halt epidemics, including perhaps HIV/AIDS, since sexual behaviour is a significant component of some virtual worlds, such as Second Life.
Havatars place the control parameters of an epidemic in the hands of each individual. By providing tools that everyone can understand and use, we could democratise epidemiology.
迄今为止，所有流行疾病建模方法的一个主要缺陷是需要对疾病传播相关情境中的人类行为进行近似或猜测。化身通常是在由人类个体控制的虚拟计算机世界中的类人形象。
我们引入了“havatar”的概念，它是一个（人类，化身）对。越来越多的证据表明，在虚拟情境中，这种配对的行为方式与配对中的人类在类似的真实世界情境中可能的行为方式非常相似。
我们提出，在虚拟世界中对 havatars 的研究可能会对真实世界情境中的人类行为进行真实的近似。如果虚拟世界在相关细节（地理位置、交通等）上近似于现实世界，那么该世界中的虚拟传染病可以准确模拟现实世界中的传染病。因此，havatar 对传染病的建模为解决如何最好地阻止传染病提供了一种补充工具，包括可能的 HIV/AIDS，因为性行为是一些虚拟世界（如 Second Life）的重要组成部分。
havatars 将传染病的控制参数掌握在每个人手中。通过提供每个人都能理解和使用的工具，我们可以使流行病学民主化。
