Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2024 May 28;19(5):e0303051. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303051. eCollection 2024.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality globally, and is the second main cause of mortality in the UK. Four key modifiable behaviours are known to increase CVD risk, namely: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol. Behaviours that increase the risk of CVD can spread through social networks because individuals consciously and unconsciously mimic the behaviour of others they relate to and admire. Exploiting these social influences may lead to effective and efficient public health interventions to prevent CVD. This project aimed to construct and validate an agent-based model (ABM) of how the four major behavioural risk-factors for CVD spread through social networks in a population, and examine whether the model could be used to identify targets for public health intervention and to test intervention strategies. Previous ABMs have typically focused on a single risk factor or considered very small populations. We created a city-scale ABM to model the behavioural risk-factors of individuals, their social networks (spousal, household, friendship and workplace), the spread of behaviours through these social networks, and the subsequent impact on the development of CVD. We compared the model output (predicted CVD events over a ten year period) to observed data, demonstrating that the model output is realistic. The model output is stable up to at least a population size of 1.2M agents (the maximum tested). We found that there is scope for the modelled interventions targeting the spread of these behaviours to change the number of CVD events experienced by the agents over ten years. Specifically, we modelled the impact of workplace interventions to show that the ABM could be useful for identifying targets for public health intervention. The model itself is Open Source and is available for use or extension by other researchers.
心血管疾病(CVD)是全球范围内导致死亡的主要原因,也是英国第二大主要死亡原因。有四个主要的可改变行为被认为会增加 CVD 的风险,即:吸烟、不健康的饮食、缺乏身体活动和有害使用酒精。增加 CVD 风险的行为可以通过社交网络传播,因为个体有意识或无意识地模仿他们与之相关和钦佩的人的行为。利用这些社会影响可能会导致有效的公共卫生干预措施来预防 CVD。本项目旨在构建和验证一个基于代理的模型(ABM),以了解 CVD 的四个主要行为风险因素如何在人群中通过社交网络传播,并研究该模型是否可用于确定公共卫生干预的目标和测试干预策略。以前的 ABM 通常侧重于单一风险因素或考虑非常小的人群。我们创建了一个城市规模的 ABM 来模拟个体的行为风险因素、他们的社交网络(配偶、家庭、友谊和工作场所)、行为通过这些社交网络的传播以及随后对 CVD 发展的影响。我们将模型输出(十年内预测的 CVD 事件)与观察数据进行了比较,证明了模型输出是现实的。该模型输出至少在 120 万代理(测试的最大数量)的人口规模上是稳定的。我们发现,针对这些行为传播的建模干预措施有改变个体在十年内经历的 CVD 事件数量的空间。具体来说,我们模拟了工作场所干预的影响,表明 ABM 可用于识别公共卫生干预的目标。该模型本身是开源的,可供其他研究人员使用或扩展。