WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, School of Public Health, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 11;7(1):7974. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08241-1.
The spread of many respiratory infections is determined by contact patterns between infectious and susceptible individuals in the population. There are no published data for quantifying social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong which is a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases due to its high population density and connectivity in the air transportation network. We adopted a commonly used diary-based design to conduct a social contact survey in Hong Kong in 2015/16 using both paper and online questionnaires. Participants using paper questionnaires reported more contacts and longer contact duration than those using online questionnaires. Participants reported 13 person-hours of contact and 8 contacts per day on average, which decreased over age but increased with household size, years of education and income level. Prolonged and frequent contacts, and contacts at home, school and work were more likely to involve physical contacts. Strong age-assortativity was observed in all age groups. We evaluated the characteristics of social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong. Our findings could help to improve the design of future social contact surveys, parameterize transmission models of respiratory infectious diseases, and inform intervention strategies based on model outputs.
许多呼吸道传染病的传播取决于人群中感染个体和易感个体之间的接触模式。由于人口密度高，航空运输网络互联互通，香港是新发传染病的热点地区，但目前尚无针对与呼吸道传染病传播相关的社会接触模式进行量化的相关数据。我们采用了一种常用的基于日记的设计方法，于 2015/16 年在香港进行了一项社会接触调查，使用纸质和在线问卷。与在线问卷相比，使用纸质问卷的参与者报告的接触次数更多，接触时间更长。参与者平均每天报告 13 人时的接触和 8 次接触，接触次数随年龄的增长而减少，但随家庭规模、受教育年限和收入水平的增加而增加。长时间和频繁的接触，以及在家、学校和工作中的接触，更有可能涉及身体接触。在所有年龄段都观察到强烈的年龄聚集性。我们评估了与呼吸道传染病传播相关的社会接触模式的特征。我们的研究结果有助于改进未来社会接触调查的设计，为呼吸道传染病的传播模型提供参数，并根据模型输出制定干预策略。
