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The duration of travel impacts the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases

The duration of travel impacts the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases
The duration of travel impacts the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases
Humans can impact the spatial transmission dynamics of infectious diseases by introducing pathogens into susceptible environments. The rate at which this occurs depends in part on human-mobility patterns. Increasingly, mobile-phone usage data are used to quantify human mobility and investigate the impact on disease dynamics. Although the number of trips between locations and the duration of those trips could both affect infectious-disease dynamics, there has been limited work to quantify and model the duration of travel in the context of disease transmission. Using mobility data inferred from mobile-phone calling records in Namibia, we calculated both the number of trips between districts and the duration of these trips from 2010 to 2014. We fit hierarchical Bayesian models to these data to describe both the mean trip number and duration. Results indicate that trip duration is positively related to trip distance, but negatively related to the destination population density. The highest volume of trips and shortest trip durations were among high-density districts, whereas trips among low-density districts had lower volume with longer duration. We also analyzed the impact of including trip duration in spatial-transmission models for a range of pathogens and introduction locations. We found that inclusion of trip duration generally delays the rate of introduction, regardless of pathogen, and that the variance and uncertainty around spatial spread increases proportionally with pathogen-generation time. These results enhance our understanding of disease-dispersal dynamics driven by human mobility, which has potential to elucidate optimal spatial and temporal scales for epidemic interventions.
Cell Phone Use, Communicable Diseases/epidemiology, Epidemics, Humans, Models, Statistical, Namibia, Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Travel
0027-8424
22572-22579
Giles, John R.
ee741055-9a3e-42e3-b956-e9df9472c8f4
Erbach-Schoenberg, Elisabeth zu
b13d2f24-cb18-48da-9e30-121dcc4a228b
Tatem, Andrew
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Gardner, Lauren
8c27396a-a6c2-4016-91df-4c37beca3f8e
Bjørnstad, Ottar N.
a916ed51-d854-4aec-bda1-820d5e24a374
Metcalf, C.J.E.
6b7f06bd-e6b4-4c9c-a3e2-027d710aff1d
Wesolowski, Amy
343b0df8-5a2f-46e2-9f1c-001d4adf7fb1
Giles, John R.
ee741055-9a3e-42e3-b956-e9df9472c8f4
Erbach-Schoenberg, Elisabeth zu
b13d2f24-cb18-48da-9e30-121dcc4a228b
Tatem, Andrew
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Gardner, Lauren
8c27396a-a6c2-4016-91df-4c37beca3f8e
Bjørnstad, Ottar N.
a916ed51-d854-4aec-bda1-820d5e24a374
Metcalf, C.J.E.
6b7f06bd-e6b4-4c9c-a3e2-027d710aff1d
Wesolowski, Amy
343b0df8-5a2f-46e2-9f1c-001d4adf7fb1

Giles, John R., Erbach-Schoenberg, Elisabeth zu, Tatem, Andrew, Gardner, Lauren, Bjørnstad, Ottar N., Metcalf, C.J.E. and Wesolowski, Amy (2020) The duration of travel impacts the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117 (36), 22572-22579. (doi:10.1073/pnas.1922663117).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Humans can impact the spatial transmission dynamics of infectious diseases by introducing pathogens into susceptible environments. The rate at which this occurs depends in part on human-mobility patterns. Increasingly, mobile-phone usage data are used to quantify human mobility and investigate the impact on disease dynamics. Although the number of trips between locations and the duration of those trips could both affect infectious-disease dynamics, there has been limited work to quantify and model the duration of travel in the context of disease transmission. Using mobility data inferred from mobile-phone calling records in Namibia, we calculated both the number of trips between districts and the duration of these trips from 2010 to 2014. We fit hierarchical Bayesian models to these data to describe both the mean trip number and duration. Results indicate that trip duration is positively related to trip distance, but negatively related to the destination population density. The highest volume of trips and shortest trip durations were among high-density districts, whereas trips among low-density districts had lower volume with longer duration. We also analyzed the impact of including trip duration in spatial-transmission models for a range of pathogens and introduction locations. We found that inclusion of trip duration generally delays the rate of introduction, regardless of pathogen, and that the variance and uncertainty around spatial spread increases proportionally with pathogen-generation time. These results enhance our understanding of disease-dispersal dynamics driven by human mobility, which has potential to elucidate optimal spatial and temporal scales for epidemic interventions.

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The duration of travel impacts the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases
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Accepted/In Press date: 24 August 2020
Published date: 8 September 2020
Additional Information: Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
Keywords: Cell Phone Use, Communicable Diseases/epidemiology, Epidemics, Humans, Models, Statistical, Namibia, Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Travel

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 443921
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/443921
ISSN: 0027-8424
PURE UUID: 8525ba6b-7217-4ae9-b66b-f1be7895201c
ORCID for Andrew Tatem: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-941X

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Date deposited: 16 Sep 2020 16:40
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:29

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Contributors

Author: John R. Giles
Author: Elisabeth zu Erbach-Schoenberg
Author: Andrew Tatem ORCID iD
Author: Lauren Gardner
Author: Ottar N. Bjørnstad
Author: C.J.E. Metcalf
Author: Amy Wesolowski

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