Diseases, We all die

During the class with the disease demonstration, I was reminded of a fun flash game, called Pandemic 2, which is a network-related game. The premise is to create and evolve a disease, with the objective being the eradication of everyone. It shows the rapid spread through an individual country's population, but the countries themselves are the primary nodes in the network system used in the game. You adjust how it spreads between nodes and proliferates in them by adjusting its qualities.
Here is the link:
Enjoy

Hmmmm. The link didn't get put through. But typing "Pandemic 2" into Google takes you there on the first page listed.

Haha so apparently you have to register to post links.
Here it is for real.
Pandemic 2

I think Pandemic2 is an interesting example of this because it seems to consist of iterative connected graphs. On the largest scale, as mentioned, each country acts as a node, and there are edges connecting them in various ways (shipyard, airport, road). On a finer scale, however, each individual within a country acts as a node, and the game takes into account population density of a given country, in conjunction with other factors* to determine how quickly the disease is able to spread within a given country.

*examples include:
-How many people are out and about on the streets? (has martial law been declared?)
-How socialized are the children in the country? (have the schools been shut down?)

Although social networks explain the physical spread of a disease, they can also provide evidence for the spread of intangible ideas that have health implications.

http://blog.highlighthealth.info/social-networks/social-networks-and-health/

This article explains the link between health and social networks, highlighting the unintended health effects that pervade through the patient’s social networks, both negative and positive.

For example, the spread of obesity can be explained by examining the person-to-person relationships in social networks. It has been found that an individual’s chances of becoming obese increase by 57% when a friend becomes obese. Instead of focusing on the spread of something tangible, like a disease, the researchers suggest that the acceptance of obesity spreads.

In addition to diseases, abstract ideas that spread through the relationships in a network affect health.