Mean-field theory of a recurrent epidemiological model

Our purpose is to provide a mean-field theory for the discrete time-step susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible (SIRS) model on uncorrelated networks with arbitrary degree distributions. The effect of network structure, time delays, and infection rate on the stability of oscillating and fixed point solutions is examined through analysis of discrete time mean-field equations. Consideration of two scenarios for disease contagion demonstrates that the manner in which contagion is transmitted from an infected individual to a contacted susceptible individual is of primary importance. In particular, the manner of contagion transmission determines how the degree distribution affects model behavior. We find excellent agreement between our theoretical results and numerical simulations on networks with large average connectivity.