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The role of demographic variables in disease spread in remote and isolated communities is poorly understood. We developed an agent-based model of a small indigenous community to qualitatively study the impact of pre-existing immunity in both young and elderly populations. We observed that in crowded living conditions, the age distribution of the population is a critical factor influencing epidemic spread. As the average age of the population increases, the effect of the pre-existing immunity in older individuals becomes more pronounced in decreasing disease incidence, even when pre-existing immunity levels in young individuals are low. However, in a non-crowded setting with relatively low average persons-per-household, the pre-existing immunity levels of young individuals remains a determining factor, regardless of the age distribution of the population. We suggest that for optimizing public health policies …