Social and Occupational Contact Patterns and Risk of Acute Respiratory Infections

了解社会接触模式及其与急性呼吸道感染风险的关系，对于为COVID-19大流行以及未来季节性和流行性呼吸道疾病的传播模式和公共卫生干预提供信息至关重要。缺乏对接触方式与急性呼吸道感染风险之间关系的全面调查，需要能够将行为和社会人口因素与感染风险联系起来的大型社区研究，以及可获得的工具来评估接触方式。使用来自COVID-19（病毒观察），流感和其他常见急性呼吸道感染（流感观察）以及感染综合征（Bug Watch）的大型国家队列研究的数据，本论文旨在验证和完善社会接触的措施，并量化英国人口中的接触模式及其与感染风险的关系。具体目标是：1)将当前的社会接触问卷调整为一种缩短的、可访问的措施，用于研究和监测。2)对于评估接触模式的不同方法（如问卷调查、跟踪应用、职业接触分类），评估接触估计水平的可接受性/易用性（通过提供数据的接受度和成功完成度来衡量）和相互关系。3)量化大流行（COVID-19和H1N1）和季节期间社会和职业接触模式与病毒学确诊、血清学确诊和综合征性急性呼吸道疾病风险之间的关系。4)利用生态社会方法调查社会人口学特征、接触模式和疾病风险之间的关系。

Understanding social contact patterns and their relationship with risk of acute respiratory infection is crucial to inform transmission models and public health interventions to the COVID-19 pandemic and future seasonal and epidemic respiratory illnesses. Comprehensive investigation into the relationship between contact patterns and risk of acute respiratory infections is lacking and requires large community-level studies able to link behavioral and sociodemographic factors to infection risk as well as accessible tools to assess contact patterns. Using data from large national cohort studies of COVID-19 (Virus Watch), influenza and other common acute respiratory infections (Flu Watch) and infection syndromes (Bug Watch), this thesis aims to validate and refine measures of social contact and to quantify patterns of contact within the UK population and their relationship to risk of infection. Specific objectives are:1) Adapt current social contact questionnaires into a shortened, accessible measures for use in research and surveillance. 2) For different methods of assessing contact patterns (e.g. questionnaires, tracking applications, occupational contact classification), assess the acceptability/ease-of-use (measured by acceptance to provide data and successful completion) and interrelationships regarding estimated levels of contact.3) Quantify the relationship between social and occupational contact patterns and risk of virologically confirmed, serologically confirmed, and syndromic acute respiratory illnesses during both pandemic (COVID-19 and H1N1) and seasonal periods. 4) To investigate the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics, contact patterns, and risk of illness using an eco-social approach.