The impact of school holidays on the social mixing patterns of school children
The impact of school holidays on the social mixing patterns of school children
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DOI：
10.1016/j.epidem.2011.03.003
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发表时间：
2011-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Edmunds, W. John
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Eames, Ken T. D.;Tilston, Natasha L.;Edmunds, W. John
学校假期被认为对各种传染病具有重要的流行病学意义;据推测，这是因为学校儿童-一个关键的人口群体-的社会混合模式在假期期间发生了重大变化。然而，几乎没有直接的定量证据来证实这一观点。在这里，我们提出了一个前瞻性的调查结果，旨在提供一个详细的比较，在学校学期和学校假期期间的学生的社会混合模式。配对数据被收集，参与者在学期期间和假期期间分别记录一次他们的社交联系。我们发现，在假期期间，每天记录的接触次数大约减少了一半，密切接触的次数减少了大约三分之一。假期期间，孩子们的社会交往年龄结构也发生了变化，与自己年龄段的交往大大减少，但与成年人，特别是老年人的交往数量却有所增加。在假期期间，不同学校的孩子之间的混合量更大。因此，我们建议，虽然感染可能在学期期间在学校内迅速传播，但在假期期间，传播到其他学校和其他年龄组的机会增加。(C)2011年爱思唯尔B。V.保留所有权利。
School holidays are recognised to be of great epidemiological importance for a wide range of infectious diseases; this is postulated to be because the social mixing patterns of school children - a key population group - change significantly during the holiday period. However, there is little direct quantitative evidence to confirm this belief. Here, we present the results of a prospective survey designed to provide a detailed comparison of social mixing patterns of school children during school terms and during the school holidays. Paired data were collected, with participants recording their social contacts once during term time and once during the holiday period. We found that the daily number of recorded encounters approximately halved during the holidays, and that the number of close contact encounters fell by approximately one third. The holiday period also saw a change in the age structure of children's social contacts, with far fewer contacts of their own age, but an increase in the number of encounters with adults, particularly older adults. A greater amount of mixing between children at different schools was recorded during the holiday. We suggest, therefore, that whilst infections may spread rapidly within schools during term time, in the holiday period there are increased opportunities for transmission to other schools and other age groups. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.