Social contact patterns and implications for infectious disease transmission - a systematic review and meta-analysis of contact surveys.

Siddhartha Saha, Alessia Melegaro, Carl D Morrow, Joël Mossong, Eleanor Fg Neal, D James Nokes, Wirichada Pan-Ngum, Gail E Potter, Fiona M Russell, Wiriya Mahikul, Jonathan D Sugimoto, Wan In Wei, Robin R Wood, Joseph Wu, Juanjuan Zhang, Patrick Walker, Charles Whittaker, Moses Chapa Kiti, Peter Winskill, Oliver John Watson, Oliver Ratmann, Mélodie Monod, Marco Ajelli, Aldiouma Diallo, Peter J Dodd, Carlos G Grijalva, Andria Mousa, Anand Krishnan, Rakesh Kumar, Supriya Kumar, Kin O Kwok, Claudio F Lanata, Olivier Le Polain de Waroux, Kathy Leung

Journal: eLife 2022;10():e70294

PMID: 34821551

Free Full Text on PubMed Central View on PubMed

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Transmission of respiratory pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 depends on patterns of contact and mixing across populations. Understanding this is crucial to predict pathogen spread and the effectiveness of control efforts. Most analyses of contact patterns to date have focused on high-income settings.

METHODS

Here, we conduct a systematic review and individual-participant meta-analysis of surveys carried out in low- and middle-income countries and compare patterns of contact in these settings to surveys previously carried out in high-income countries. Using individual-level data from 28,503 participants and 413,069 contacts across 27 surveys, we explored how contact characteristics (number, location, duration, and whether physical) vary across income settings.

RESULTS

Contact rates declined with age in high- and upper-middle-income settings, but not in low-income settings, where adults aged 65+ made similar numbers of contacts as younger individuals and mixed with all age groups. Across all settings, increasing household size was a key determinant of contact frequency and characteristics, with low-income settings characterised by the largest, most intergenerational households. A higher proportion of contacts were made at home in low-income settings, and work/school contacts were more frequent in high-income strata. We also observed contrasting effects of gender across income strata on the frequency, duration, and type of contacts individuals made.

CONCLUSIONS

These differences in contact patterns between settings have material consequences for both spread of respiratory pathogens and the effectiveness of different non-pharmaceutical interventions.

FUNDING

This work is primarily being funded by joint Centre funding from the UK Medical Research Council and DFID (MR/R015600/1).

Address: MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.; Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Public Health, Bloomington, United States.; Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-technical Systems, Northeastern University, Boston, United States.; VITROME, Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, Dakar, Senegal.; School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.; Division of Pharmacoepidemiology, Department of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, United States.; KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya.; Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, United States.; JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.; Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.; Shenzhen Research Institute of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.; Instituto de Investigación Nutricional, Lima, Peru.; Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, United States.; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.; WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.; Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D24H), Hong Kong Science Park, Hong Kong, China.; Faculty of Medicine and Public Health, HRH Princess Chulabhorn College of Medical Science, Chulabhorn Royal Academy, Bangkok, Thailand.; Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy.; Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.; Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research (CIDER), School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.; Health Directorate, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.; Infection and Immunity, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Victoria, Australia.; Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.; School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.; Department of Tropical Hygiene, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.; National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, United States.; The Emmes Company, Rockville, United States.; Influenza Programme, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Delhi, India.; Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Seattle, United States.; Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Washington, United States.; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, United States.; School of Public Health, Fudan University, Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, Shanghai, China.

DOI: 10.7554/eLife.70294

Link outs

Free resources

Full Text Sources:

Medical:

https://medlineplus.gov/covid19coronavirusdisease2...

Miscellaneous:

https://assays.cancer.gov/CPTAC-438

MeSH Terms: Adolescent, Adult, Aged, COVID-19, Disease Transmission, Infectious, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, SARS-CoV-2, Young Adult