Estimating fine age structure and time trends in human contact patterns from coarse contact data: The Bayesian rate consistency model.

ABSTRACT: Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), large-scale social contact surveys are now longitudinally measuring the fundamental changes in human interactions in the face of the pandemic and non-pharmaceutical interventions. Here, we present a model-based Bayesian approach that can reconstruct contact patterns at 1-year resolution even when the age of the contacts is reported coarsely by 5 or 10-year age bands. This innovation is rooted in population-level consistency constraints in how contacts between groups must add up, which prompts us to call the approach presented here the Bayesian rate consistency model. The model can also quantify time trends and adjust for reporting fatigue emerging in longitudinal surveys through the use of computationally

SUBMITTER: Dan S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10270591 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature