A model of population dynamics with complex household structure and mobility: implications for transmission and control of communicable diseases
View ORCID ProfileRebecca H. Chisholm, Bradley Crammond, Yue Wu, View ORCID ProfileAsha C. Bowen, Patricia T. Campbell, View ORCID ProfileSteven Y. C. Tong, View ORCID ProfileJodie McVernon, Nicholas Geard
Rebecca H. Chisholm
1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, La Trobe University, Bundoora VIC, Australia
2Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne VIC, Australia
ORCID record for Rebecca H. Chisholm
For correspondence: r.chisholm@latrobe.edu.au
Bradley Crammond
3Wesfarmers Centre for Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, WA, Australia
Asha C. Bowen
4Infectious Diseases Department, Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia
ORCID record for Asha C. Bowen
Patricia T. Campbell
5Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory Epidemiology, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne VIC, Australia
Steven Y. C. Tong
6Doherty Department, University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne VIC, Australia
7Victorian Infectious Diseases Service, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne VIC, Australia
8Global and Tropical Health Division, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin NT, Australia
ORCID record for Steven Y. C. Tong
Jodie McVernon
ORCID record for Jodie McVernon
Nicholas Geard
9School of Computing and Information Systems, Melbourne School of Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne VIC, Australia
Households are known to be high-risk locations for the transmission of communicable diseases. Numerous modelling studies have demonstrated the important role of households in sustaining both communicable diseases outbreaks and endemic transmission, and as the focus for control efforts. However, these studies typically assume that households are associated with a single dwelling and have static membership. This assumption does not appropriately reflect households in some populations, such as those in remote Australian Indigenous communities, which can be distributed across more than one physical dwelling, leading to the occupancy of individual dwellings changing rapidly over time. In this study, we developed an individual-based model of an infectious disease outbreak in communities with demographic and household structure reflective of a remote Australian Indigenous community. We used the model to compare the dynamics of unmitigated outbreaks, and outbreaks constrained by a household-focused prophylaxis intervention, in communities exhibiting fluid versus stable dwelling occupancy. Our findings suggest that fluid dwelling occupancy can lead to larger and faster outbreaks, interfere with the effectiveness of household-focused interventions, and may contribute to the considerable burden of communicable diseases in communities exhibiting this type of structure.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
This work was supported in part by seed-funding from a NHMRC program grant (1131932) and a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (APP1058804).
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.
All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. The model is implemented in MATLAB and the code needed to regenerate all figures and tables is available in the GitHub repository: rhchisholm/transmission-complex-households
https://github.com/rhchisholm/transmission-complex-households
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
Posted July 14, 2020.
You are going to email the following A model of population dynamics with complex household structure and mobility: implications for transmission and control of communicable diseases
Rebecca H. Chisholm, Bradley Crammond, Yue Wu, Asha C. Bowen, Patricia T. Campbell, Steven Y. C. Tong, Jodie McVernon, Nicholas Geard
Infectious Diseases (except HIV/AIDS)