dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaThe contact network of patients in a regional healthcare system
| Authors | Fredrik Liljeros, Petter Holme, Johan Giesecke |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0505020 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505020 |
| DOI | 10.1080/08898480701612899 |
| Journal | Mathematical Population Studies 14, (2007) 269-284 |
Abstract
Yet in spite of advances in hospital treatment, hospitals continue to be a breeding ground for several airborne diseases and for diseases that are transmitted through close contacts like SARS, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), norovirus infections and tuberculosis (TB). Here we extract contact networks for up to 295,108 inpatients for durations up to two years from a database used for administrating a local public healthcare system serving a population of 1.9 million individuals. Structural and dynamical properties of the network of importance for the transmission of contagious diseases are then analyzed by methods from network epidemiology. The contact networks are found to be very much determined by an extreme (age independent) variation in duration of hospital stays and the hospital structure. We find that that the structure of contacts between in-patients exhibit structural properties, such as a high level of transitivity, assortativity and variation in number of contacts, that are likely to be of importance for the transmission of less contagious diseases. If these properties are considered when designing prevention programs the risk for and the effect of epidemic outbreaks may be decreased.
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"abstract": "Yet in spite of advances in hospital treatment, hospitals continue to be a\nbreeding ground for several airborne diseases and for diseases that are\ntransmitted through close contacts like SARS, methicillin-resistant\nStaphylococcus aureus (MRSA), norovirus infections and tuberculosis (TB). Here\nwe extract contact networks for up to 295,108 inpatients for durations up to\ntwo years from a database used for administrating a local public healthcare\nsystem serving a population of 1.9 million individuals. Structural and\ndynamical properties of the network of importance for the transmission of\ncontagious diseases are then analyzed by methods from network epidemiology. The\ncontact networks are found to be very much determined by an extreme (age\nindependent) variation in duration of hospital stays and the hospital\nstructure. We find that that the structure of contacts between in-patients\nexhibit structural properties, such as a high level of transitivity,\nassortativity and variation in number of contacts, that are likely to be of\nimportance for the transmission of less contagious diseases. If these\nproperties are considered when designing prevention programs the risk for and\nthe effect of epidemic outbreaks may be decreased.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0505020",
"authors": [
"Fredrik Liljeros",
"Petter Holme",
"Johan Giesecke"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.OT",
"physics.soc-ph",
"q-bio.PE"
],
"doi": "10.1080/08898480701612899",
"journal_ref": "Mathematical Population Studies 14, (2007) 269-284",
"title": "The contact network of patients in a regional healthcare system",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505020"
},
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