Pathways to discontinuous transitions in interacting contagion dynamics

Abstract

Yet often neglected, dynamical interdependencies between concomitant contagion processes can alter their intrinsic equilibria and bifurcations. A particular case of interest for disease control is the emergence of discontinuous transitions in epidemic dynamics coming from their interactions with other simultaneous processes. To address this problem, here we propose a framework coupling a standard epidemic dynamics with another contagion process, presenting a tunable parameter shaping the nature of its transitions. Our model retrieves well-known results in the literature, such as the existence of first-order transitions arising from the mutual cooperation of epidemics or the onset of abrupt transitions when social contagions unidirectionally drive epidemics. We also reveal that negative feedback loops between simultaneous dynamical processes might suppress abrupt phenomena, thus increasing systems robustness against external perturbations. Our results render a general perspective towards finding different pathways to abrupt phenomena from the interaction of contagion processes.