A LQ Vaccine Communication Game

The vaccination issue is a crucial problem nowadays. We see the presence of an anti-vaccination movement, which takes actions to spread the idea that vaccines are ineffective and even dangerous. We propose a model for this public health problem using the differential game framework and aspire to help understanding the effectiveness of communication policies. One player of the game is the health-care system, which aims to minimize the number of unvaccinated people at minimum cost. The second player is a pharmaceutical firm, which produces and sells a given type of vaccine, and wants to maximize its profit. To pursue their objectives, the two players run suitable vaccination advertising campaigns. We study the open-loop Nash equilibrium advertising strategies of the two players and observe that the communication policy of the pharmaceutical firm helps the health-care system to decrease the number of unvaccinated people.