  Bursts in human and natural activities are highly clustered in time,
suggesting that these activities are influenced by previous events within the
social or natural system. Bursty behavior in the real world conveys information
of underlying diffusion processes, which have been the focus of diverse
scientific communities from online social media to criminology and
epidemiology. However, universal components of real-world diffusion dynamics
that cut across disciplines remain unexplored. Here, we introduce a wide range
of diffusion processes across disciplines and propose universal components of
diffusion frameworks. We apply these components to diffusion-based studies of
human disease spread, through a case study of the vector-borne disease dengue.
The proposed universality of diffusion can motivate transdisciplinary research
and provide a fundamental framework for diffusion models.
