TY - JOUR
T1 - Collective response of human populations to large-scale emergencies
AU - Bagrow, James P.
AU - Wang, Dashun
AU - Barabási, Albert László
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Despite recent advances in uncovering the quantitative features of stationary human activity patterns, many applications, from pandemic prediction to emergency response, require an understanding of how these patterns change when the population encounters unfamiliar conditions. To explore societal response to external perturbations we identified real-time changes in communication and mobility patterns in the vicinity of eight emergencies, such as bomb attacks and earthquakes, comparing these with eight non-emergencies, like concerts and sporting events. We find that communication spikes accompanying emergencies are both spatially and temporally localized, but information about emergencies spreads globally, resulting in communication avalanches that engage in a significant manner the social network of eyewitnesses. These results offer a quantitative view of behavioral changes in human activity under extreme conditions, with potential long-term impact on emergency detection and response.
AB - Despite recent advances in uncovering the quantitative features of stationary human activity patterns, many applications, from pandemic prediction to emergency response, require an understanding of how these patterns change when the population encounters unfamiliar conditions. To explore societal response to external perturbations we identified real-time changes in communication and mobility patterns in the vicinity of eight emergencies, such as bomb attacks and earthquakes, comparing these with eight non-emergencies, like concerts and sporting events. We find that communication spikes accompanying emergencies are both spatially and temporally localized, but information about emergencies spreads globally, resulting in communication avalanches that engage in a significant manner the social network of eyewitnesses. These results offer a quantitative view of behavioral changes in human activity under extreme conditions, with potential long-term impact on emergency detection and response.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79953317477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0017680
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0017680
M3 - Article
C2 - 21479206
AN - SCOPUS:79953317477
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 6
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e17680
ER -