Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, New York, NY, United States of America.
Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, New York University, New York, NY, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 1;15(12):e0242990. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242990. eCollection 2020.
One important concern around the spread of respiratory infectious diseases has been the contribution of public transportation, a space where people are in close contact with one another and with high-use surfaces. While disease clearly spreads along transportation routes, there is limited evidence about whether public transportation use itself is associated with the overall prevalence of contagious respiratory illnesses at the local level. We examine the extent of the association between public transportation and influenza mortality, a proxy for disease prevalence, using city-level data on influenza and pneumonia mortality and public transit use from 121 large cities in the United States (US) between 2006 and 2015. We find no evidence of a positive relationship between city-level transit ridership and influenza/pneumonia mortality rates, suggesting that population level rates of transit use are not a singularly important factor in the transmission of influenza.
人们一直担心呼吸道传染病的传播，其中一个关注点是公共交通的作用。在公共交通工具上，人们彼此之间以及与高使用频率的表面接触密切。虽然疾病显然会沿着交通路线传播，但关于公共交通使用本身是否与当地传染性呼吸道疾病的总体流行程度有关的证据有限。我们使用美国 121 个大城市 2006 年至 2015 年期间的流感和肺炎死亡率以及公共交通使用数据，研究了公共交通与流感死亡率（疾病流行程度的一个替代指标）之间的关联程度。我们没有发现城市公共交通使用率与流感/肺炎死亡率之间存在正相关关系的证据，这表明人群中公共交通使用水平并不是流感传播的一个重要因素。
