A community-based sociocultural network approach to controlling COVID-19 contagion: Seven suggestions for improving policy

We showcase the usefulness of a community-based sociocultural network approach to understanding and combating COVID-19 contagion. Rather than recommending the standard approach to modeling contagion, which uses the individual person as the unit of interest (SEIR-type modeling), we encourage researchers and policymakers to focus on social units (such as households) and to conceive of the social units as being part of a community (a local configuration of a sociocultural network) that is embedded in a regional or national culture. Contagion occurs via culturally conditioned interactions between social units in these community networks. On the basis of this approach and our preliminary simulation results, we offer three policy suggestions for analysts, two for policymakers, and two for practitioners.