  Understanding the impact of collective social phenomena in epidemic dynamics
is a crucial task to effectively contain the disease spread. In this work we
build a mathematical description for assessing the interplay between opinion
polarization and the evolution of a disease. The proposed kinetic approach
describes the evolution of aggregate quantities characterizing the agents
belonging to epidemiologically relevant states, and will show that the spread
of the disease is closely related to consensus dynamics distribution in which
opinion polarization may emerge. In the present modelling framework,
microscopic consensus formation dynamics can be linked to macroscopic epidemic
trends to trigger the collective adherence to protective measures. We conduct
numerical investigations which confirm the ability of the model to describe
different phenomena related to the spread of an epidemic.
