Modeling the evolution of drinking behavior: A Statistical Physics perspective

Abstract

In this work we study a simple compartmental model for drinking behavior evolution. The population is divided in 3 compartments regarding their alcohol consumption, namely Susceptible individuals $S$ (nonconsumers), Moderate drinkers $M$ and Risk drinkers $R$. The transitions among those states are ruled by probabilities. Despite the simplicity of the model, we observed the occurrence of two distinct nonequilibrium phase transitions to absorbing states. One of these states is composed only by Susceptible individuals $S$, with no drinkers ($M=R=0$). On the other hand, the other absorbing state is composed only by Risk drinkers $R$ ($S=M=0$). Between these two steady states, we have the coexistence of the three subpopulations $S$, $M$ and $R$. Comparison with abusive alcohol consumption data for Brazil shows a good agreement between the model's results and the database.

20 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physica A

References in corpus (2)

• The role of inflexible minorities in the breaking of democratic opinion dynamics
• Critical behavior of the SIS epidemic model with time-dependent infection rate

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Radicalization phenomena: Phase transitions, extinction processes and control of violent activities
• Role of inflexible minorities in the evolution of alcohol consumption
• Recent violent political extremist events in Brazil and epidemic modeling: The role of a SIS-like model on the understanding of spreading and control of radicalism
• A mathematical model for the bullying dynamics in schools