Directly observed social contact patterns among school children in rural Gambia.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

School-aged children play a major role in the transmission of many respiratory pathogens due to high rate of close contacts in schools. The validity and accuracy of proxy-reported contact data may be limited, particularly for children when attending school. We observed social contacts within schools and assessed the accuracy of proxy-reported versus observed physical contact data among students in rural Gambia.

Methods

We enrolled school children who had also been recruited to a survey of Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage and social contacts. We visited participants at school and observed their contact patterns within and outside the classroom for two hours. We recorded the contact type, gender and approximate age of the contactee, and class size. We calculated

SUBMITTER: Osei I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11649533 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature