Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics, Hasselt University, Agoralaan 1, B3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium.
BMC Infect Dis. 2009 Nov 27;9:187. doi: 10.1186/1471-2334-9-187.
Mathematical modelling of infectious disease is increasingly used to help guide public health policy. As directly transmitted infections, such as influenza and tuberculosis, require contact between individuals, knowledge about contact patterns is a necessary pre-requisite of accurate model predictions. Of particular interest is the potential impact of school closure as a means of controlling pandemic influenza (and potentially other pathogens).
This paper uses a population-based prospective survey of mixing patterns in eight European countries to study the relative change in the basic reproduction number (R0--the average number of secondary cases from a typical primary case in a fully susceptible population) on weekdays versus weekends and during regular versus holiday periods. The relative change in R0 during holiday periods and weekends gives an indication of the impact collective school closures (and prophylactic absenteeism) may have during a pandemic.
Social contact patterns differ substantially when comparing weekdays to the weekend and regular to holiday periods mainly due to the reduction in work and/or school contacts. For most countries the basic reproduction number decreases from the week to weekends and regular to holiday periods by about 21% and 17%, respectively. However for other countries no significant decrease was observed.
We use a large-scale social contact survey in eight different European countries to gain insights in the relative change in the basic reproduction number on weekdays versus weekends and during regular versus holiday periods. The resulting estimates indicate that school closure can have a substantial impact on the spread of a newly emerging infectious disease that is transmitted via close (non sexual) contacts.
传染病的数学建模越来越多地被用于帮助指导公共卫生政策。由于直接传播的传染病,如流感和结核病,需要人与人之间的接触,因此了解接触模式是准确预测模型的必要前提。特别感兴趣的是学校关闭作为控制大流行性流感(以及潜在其他病原体)的一种手段的潜在影响。
本文使用基于人群的前瞻性调查研究了八个欧洲国家的混合模式,以研究基本繁殖数(R0--在完全易感人群中,一个典型的原发性病例引起的继发性病例的平均数量)在工作日与周末以及在正常时期与假期期间的相对变化。假期和周末期间 R0 的相对变化表明集体学校关闭(和预防性缺勤)在大流行期间可能产生的影响。
与周末相比,工作日的社会接触模式有很大差异,与假期相比,正常时期的社会接触模式也有很大差异,这主要是由于工作和/或学校接触减少。对于大多数国家来说,基本繁殖数从一周到周末和正常到假期分别减少了约 21%和 17%。然而,对于其他国家,没有观察到明显的减少。
我们使用八个不同欧洲国家的大规模社会接触调查,深入了解工作日与周末以及正常时期与假期期间基本繁殖数的相对变化。所得估计表明,学校关闭可以对通过密切(非性)接触传播的新出现传染病的传播产生重大影响。