Modeling a Within-School Contact Network to Understand Influenza Transmission

• Activity Number: 140
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2011 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Gail Elizabeth Potter*+
• Companies: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
• Keywords: social network ; epidemic ; influenza ; agent-based simulation model ; contact network

Abstract

Influenza pandemics pose a serious global health concern. When a new influenza virus emerges with pandemic potential, large-scale simulation models are used to estimate key parameters and compare intervention strategies. Many epidemic models approximate social contact behavior by assuming "random mixing" within mixing groups (e.g., homes, schools, workplaces), and the impact of more realistic social network structure on estimates is an open area of exploration. We develop a realistic model of social contact behavior within a high school using friendship network data and a survey of contact behavior. We perform disease simulations to investigate the impact of dynamics in contact behavior on the epidemic and find that contact behavior is adequately represented with a static contact network. We also simulate a targeted antiviral prophylaxis intervention strategy and a grade closure intervention strategy. We find important differences in the estimates of epidemic outcomes and intervention impact obtained from our model and those obtained by a comparable random mixing scenario. Our findings have implications for policy recommendations based on models assuming random mixing.