Household members do not contact each other at random: implications for infectious disease modelling.

ABSTRACT: Airborne infectious diseases such as influenza are primarily transmitted from human to human by means of social contacts, and thus easily spread within households. Epidemic models, used to gain insight into infectious disease spread and control, typically rely on the assumption of random mixing within households. Until now, there has been no direct empirical evidence to support this assumption. Here, we present the first social contact survey specifically designed to study contact networks within households. The survey was conducted in Belgium (Flanders and Brussels) from 2010 to 2011. We analysed data from 318 households totalling 1266 individuals with household sizes ranging from two to seven members. Exponential-family random graph models (ERGMs) were fitted to the within-household cont

SUBMITTER: Goeyvaerts N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6304037 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature