Simulating Personal Protective Behaviour in an Epidemic

The TELL ME agent based model will simulate personal protective decisions such as vaccination or hand hygiene during an influenza epidemic. Such behaviour may be adopted in response to communication from health authorities, taking into account perceived influenza risk. The behaviour decisions are to be modelled with a combination of personal attitude, average local attitude, the local number of influenza cases and the case fatality rate. The model is intended to be used to understand the effects of choices about how to communicate with the public about protecting themselves from epidemics. I will discuss the TELL ME model design, the cognitive theory supporting the design and some of the expected problems in building the simulation.