Multi-scale local network structure critically impacts epidemic spread and interventions

Network epidemic simulation enables fine-grained understanding of epidemic behavior. However, empirical samples of interaction networks display properties that are challenging to capture with popular synthetic models of networks. Our empirical results show that epidemic spread behavior is sensitive to a form of multi-scale local structure that is absent in common baseline models, (e.g., Erdős–Rényi, Chung-Lu, etc). This structure critically impacts the effect of local quarantining and stops epidemic spread in samples of interaction networks, even when it cannot be halted in simple synthetic models of those networks. Insights from our analysis include how epidemics on networks with widespread multi-scale local structure are easier to mitigate, as well as characterizing which nodes are ultimately not likely to be infected. We demonstrate that this structure results from more than just local triangle structure in the network, and we illustrate processes based on homophily or social influence and random walks that suggest how this multi-scale local structure arises and use it to cleanly isolate intervention sensitivity to multi-scale local structure.