The relative importance of frequency of contacts and duration of exposure for the spread of directly transmitted infections
The relative importance of frequency of contacts and duration of exposure for the spread of directly transmitted infections
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DOI：
10.1093/biostatistics/kxu008
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发表时间：
2014-07-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Melegaro, Alessia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
De Cao, Elisabetta;Zagheni, Emilio;Melegaro, Alessia
最近提供的关于社会接触模式的调查数据使人们有可能在了解近距离接触感染传播的社会决定因素以及长期接触对有效传播的重要性方面取得重要进展。尽管如此，关于两个最关键的确定因素(接触频率和接触时间)之间的关系以及这种关系如何适用于不同类型的感染，人们知之甚少。通过整合来自两个独立收集的社会调查(Polymod和Time Use)的数据，我们提出了一个模型，该模型将这两个传播决定因素结合到一个新的流行病学相关的接触者指标中：“合适”接触者的数量，这是涉及足够长的接触时间以允许传播的接触者的数量。根据意大利水痘和细小病毒B19的血清学数据，用贝叶斯融合技术评估了不确定度，验证了这一新的流行病学方法的有效性。该模型执行得相当好，表明接触时间和接触之间的相互作用对水痘传播至关重要，而对于B19来说，接触时间对传播至关重要。
The recent availability of survey data on social contact patterns has made possible important advances in the understanding of the social determinants of the spread of close-contact infections, and of the importance of long-lasting contacts for effective transmission to occur. Still, little is known about the relationship between two of the most critical identified factors (frequency of contacts and duration of exposure) and how this relationship applies to different types of infections. By integrating data from two independently collected social surveys (Polymod and time use), we propose a model that combines these two transmission determinants into a new epidemiologically relevant measure of contacts: the number of "suitable" contacts, which is the number of contacts that involve a sufficiently long exposure time to allow for transmission. The validity of this new epidemiological measure is tested against Italian serological data for varicella and parvovirus-B19, with uncertainty evaluated using the Bayesian melding technique. The model performs quite well, indicating that the interplay between time of exposure and contacts is critical for varicella transmission, while for B19 it is the duration of exposure that matters for transmission.