A network model for the short-term prediction of the evolution of cocaine consumption in Spain

• Published in: Mathematical and computer modelling 2010-10, Vol.52 (7), p.1023-1029
• Main Authors: Santonja, Francisco-José, Lombana, Iván-C., Rubio, María, Sánchez, Emilio, Villanueva, Javier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Calculus of variations and optimal control; Cocaine consumption; Confidence intervals; Exact sciences and technology; Mathematical analysis; Mathematics; Methods of scientific computing (including symbolic computation, algebraic computation); Network modeling; Numerical analysis. Scientific computation; Sciences and techniques of general use; Short-term predictions
• ISSN: 0895-7177; 1872-9479
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mcm.2010.02.032

Cocaine consumption is a social problem with acute consequences and its dependency can be regarded as a health concern of social transmission. This fact leads us to develop the idea that its transmission dynamics can be studied using epidemiological mathematical models. Under this point of view, in this paper we propose a network model to study the short-term evolution of the cocaine consumer subpopulations. The model parameters are obtained from data source and from an analogue continuous model. Sensitivity of the model parameters is studied. The parameters are associated with prevention and treatment policies and the sensitivity study gives us information about which parameters have more incidence on the future evolution of consumers. Results and discussion are also presented.