Empirically calibrated ABMs with spatial dynamics

1 Example and 1 Perspective

TUD-TBM seminar - 13 February 2024

 Clémentine COTTINEAU, CNRS, France / TUD-BK Urbanism, NL

 

with

Julien PERRET, IGN, LaSTIG

Romain REUILLON, CNRS, Complex Systems Institute / Géographie-cités

Sébastien REY-COYREHOURCQ, Université de Rouen, IDEES

Julie VALLÉE, CNRS, Géographie-cités

 

with

Bayi Li, TUD-BK Urbanism, NL

 

 

 

The example of the "5-a-day" campaign

in the Paris region (2007)

 

Example of ABM

Opinion diffusion, Health behaviour and the mediating effect of spatio-temporal segregation

Dietary behaviour is social biased

J Am Diet Assoc. (2008)

J Am Diet Assoc (2010)

A-spatial results on "5-a-day"

Educated, female and elderly people adhere more closely to recommendations

People with similar health outcomes tend to concentrate in space

 

ex: uneven shares of smokers, obesity rates, etc.

 

Segregation and health behaviour

Space itself can contribute to generate or increase health inequalities

 

ex: accessibility to healthcare, importance of local role models, etc.

Argument for 'place-based' policies

Spatial effect

Spatial Sorting

BUT...

Social environments change during the day

Vallée J, 2017. Challenges in targeting areas for public action. Target areas at the right place and at the right time. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Vol 71 No 10, 945-946. {10.1136/jech-2017-209197}.

Daily mobility is not socially neutral and modifies:

> The representation of target population in particular areas

> The characteristics of areas themselves (pollution, service offer, etc.)

> The exposure effect of both mobile and immobile populations (socially biased)

Research question

How does spatio-temporal segregation affect diffusion processes in the field of health behaviour?

 

Physical separation of social groups in the city

Where people

reside, but also

where they spend their time during the day (work, education, leisure, etc.)

Contextual effects are:

  • important in the context of health, education, economic behaviour
  • Hard to identify because people (1) adapt, (2) sort themselves ex-ante in terms of residence, (3) live only once!

 

Interactions between people and places are often considered as static in empirical models

  • Daily trajectories of people are not considered, even in multilevel modelling
  • Daily trajectories of places are completely ignored

 

 

Challenges

ABM to explore joint trajectories of people and places and their impact on behaviour 

>Toy models of segregation effects on dietary behaviour

SSM - Population Health (2016)

Am J Prev Med (2011)

Health, diet and ABM literature

> Place effects on health in general

But spatial conditions matter in ABM

> Raimbault, J., Cottineau, C., Le Texier, M., Le Nechet, F., & Reuillon, R. (2019). Space Matters: Extending Sensitivity Analysis to Initial Spatial Conditions in Geosimulation Models. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 22(4).

Explore effect of spatio-temporal segregation on social inequalities of diet (eating ≥5 fruit&veg a day)

 

Are social inequalities larger...

Objective

When the residence of social groups is spatially segregated (compared to a random distribution)?

When daily mobility and daytime segregation are considered?

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4 Scenario 5
Residence Random Random Empirical Empirical Empirical
Mobility / Random / Random Empirical

Realistic

Distribution

Usual

Model

Nutrition Data

Mobility data

matched by 18 sociodemographic groups

Residential : 2012 Census

Daily mobility : enquête EGT 2010 (OD)

Baromètres Santé Nutrition

(1996 ; 2002 ; 2008) 

Sex (male ; female)

X

Age (15-29 yrs.; 30-59 yrs.; 60 yrs. and +)

X

Education (poor ;  middle ; up)

Empirical calibration

 

Dietary opinions and behaviours are defined at initialisation according to the statistical distribution of their sociodemographic group.

 

8,16 million

Spatial boundary

8540 inhabited cells (1km X 1km)

Agents

with AM / PM / night locations

> (synthetic OD matrix)

with sociodemographic attributes

Ile-de-France (Paris Region)

Synthetic Population 

 

More about the generator: https://github.com/eighties-cities/h24

Scenarios 1 & 2: 

1 time slice per day

Scenarios 3 & 4: 

3 time slices a day

Spatial interactions

Opinion

dynamics model

Model of behaviour change under contraints

Dynamics

Formal Model

influence\_partner_{i,j,c} = opinion_{j,c}
influence\_cell_{i,c} = \frac{n\_healthy\_neighbours_c}{n\_all\_neighbours_c}
rewardedOpinion\_o_{i,t}= opinion_{i,t}
min(1, (1 + healthyDietReward) * opinion_{i,t}))

if i is unhealthy at time t

otherwise

newOpinion\_o_{i,t} = inertiaCoefficient \times rewardedOpinion + (1 - inertiaCoefficient) \times
( interpersonalInfluence \times influence\_partner_{i,c} +
(1 - interpersonalInfluence) \times influence\_cell_{i,c} )
x_i = f(y_i,o_i)=
max(0, y_i * (2 * newOpinion_i - 1))
max(0, y_i * (-2 * newOpinion_i + 1))

if i is unhealthy at time t

if i is healthy at time t

y_i= maxProbaToSwitch - n_i * constraintStrength

Free parameter

 = number of constraints of agent i

n_i

= agent

i

= interacting partner

j

= cell

c

= switch probability

x_i
Parameter Mechanism Range if min if max Expect Influence
Interaction Spatial Interaction  [ 0 ; 1 ] Exposure to the cell  Exposure to individuals
Reward Behaviour-Opinion  [ 0 ; 1 ] Need feedback of behaviour on opinion A healthy diet reinforces opinion
Inertia Opinion-Behaviour  [ 0 ; 1 ] Opinion sensitive to others Stable opinion
Switch Proba Opinion-Behaviour  [ 0 ; 1 ] Behaviour insensitive to opinion changes Behaviour sensitive to opinion changes
Constraint Opinion-Behaviour  [ 0 ; 1 ] No constraint on behaviour changes Behaviour changes constrained

+

+

+

?

?

Free parameters

Observables

Obs. 1 : distance to data

SI = \sum_{sex=1}^2{\sum_{age=1}^3{ \frac{ShareHealthy_{sex,age,edu=3}}{ShareHealthy_{sex,age,edu=1}} \times \frac{N_{sex, age}}{N}}}

2002

2008

steps

years

3 slices

simulation

data

\Delta_{health} = \sum_{sex=1}^2{\sum_{age=1}^3{\sum_{edu=1}^3{ | NHealthy_{sex, age, edu, simulated} - NHealthy_{sex, age, edu, observed} | }}}

Obs. 2 : social inequality

of dietary behaviour

for each category

of age ( i ) & sex ( j )

ratio between more (3) &

less (1)  educated

weighted

by sex & age category

mesure inequality between extreme education groups at equal age and sex category

2008

Characterisation of a simulation

Calibration

Calibration

Results

scenario 5

scenario 1

3

2

4

Residential segregation is the most important factor of social inequality in dietary behaviour

Daily mobility tends to reduce the effects of residential segregation

Distribution of SocialInequality values per scenario

 

 

 

~17 million residents

of the Netherlands

between 2003 and 2023

Prospective work

Economic inequality,

economic segregation

and residential mobility

Research question

Through which channels does economic inequality affect the evolution of economic segregation?

ABM to integrate theories and simulate policies

Why empirically calibrated

- To select plausible mechanistic explanations 

- To guide the incremental complexification of the model

 

 

- To compare “optimal” mechanistic combinations (between cities / between countries)

 

 

-  To build trust in model for policy evaluation

 

Using CBS Microdata

Using SURF Supercomputer

Cottineau, C., Chapron, P., Le Texier, M., & Rey‐Coyrehourcq, S. (2019). Incremental Territorial Modeling. Geographical Modeling: Cities and Territories, 2, 95-123

Cottineau, C., Reuillon, R., Chapron, P., Rey-Coyrehourcq, S., & Pumain, D. (2015). A modular modelling framework for hypotheses testing in the simulation of urbanisation. Systems, 3(4), 348-377

Work in progress but some advances...

  • thematic : the role of space and time on social dynamics
  • technical : crossing large datasets and surveys
  • Software engineering : ~ 10 millions mobile agents!
  • Model exploration : High Performance Computing with genetic algorithm
  • Epistemological : how to evaluate a generic yet realistic model? 

Conclusion

Challenges remain:

Perspectives

  • thematic : inclusion of dynamic processes between scales (individuals, households, neighbourhood, city, country)
  • technical : more precise longitudinal data to process
  • Model exploration : longer time series
  • Epistemological : Modular modelling

Thank you

Synthetic Population generator repository : https://github.com/eighties-cities/h24

Bonus 1: Synthetic Population Generation

Bonus 2: Formal Model

influence\_partner_{i,j,c} = opinion_{j,c}
influence\_cell_{i,c} = \frac{n\_healthy\_neighbours_c}{n\_all\_neighbours_c}
rewardedOpinion\_o_{i,t}= opinion_{i,t}
min(1, (1 + healthyDietReward) * opinion_{i,t}))

if i is unhealthy at time t

otherwise

newOpinion\_o_{i,t} = inertiaCoefficient \times rewardedOpinion + (1 - inertiaCoefficient) \times
( interpersonalInfluence \times influence\_partner_{i,c} +
(1 - interpersonalInfluence) \times influence\_cell_{i,c} )
x_i = f(y_i,o_i)=
max(0, y_i * (2 * newOpinion_i - 1))
max(0, y_i * (-2 * newOpinion_i + 1))

if i is unhealthy at time t

if i is healthy at time t

y_i= maxProbaToSwitch - n_i * constraintStrength

Free parameter

 = number of constraints of agent i

n_i

= agent

i

= interacting partner

j

= cell

c

= switch probability

x_i

Bonus 3: Switching mechanism

TUD-TBM Seminar 2024

By Clémentine Cottineau

TUD-TBM Seminar 2024

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