Kolok, Csego BalázsÓdor, GergelyKeliger, DánielKarsai, Márton2025-03-272025-03-272025-03-102643-156410.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.L012061https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/26759Publisher Copyright: © 2025 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.We study stationary epidemic processes in scale-free networks with local-awareness behavior adopted by only susceptible, only infected, or all nodes. We find that, while the epidemic size in the susceptible-aware and the all-aware models scales linearly with the network size, the scaling becomes sublinear in the infected-aware model. Hence, fewer aware nodes may reduce the epidemic size more effectively; a phenomenon reminiscent of Braess's paradox. We present numerical and theoretical analysis and highlight the role of influential nodes and their disassortativity to raise epidemic awareness.enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessGeneral Physics and AstronomyJournal articlehttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=86000537411&partnerID=8YFLogxKKolok, C B, Ódor, G, Keliger, D & Karsai, M 2025, 'Epidemic paradox induced by awareness driven network dynamics', Physical Review Research, vol. 7, no. 1, L012061. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.L012061ORCID: /0000-0001-5382-8950/work/1810432497328641