Blog Archives

Our last paper on the role of time spent at destination receives media attention

9/24/2013

Media hit for our last paper investigating the role of the time spent at destination by travelers on the spatial spread of infectious disease epidemics.
Allodocteurs.com, the online platform of the Health Section of France Television TF5, reported on our work and discussed the parameterization of the model, as well as our data-driven approach GLEAM. Read more here.

New publication on the epidemiological effects of time spent at destination by travelers

9/23/2013

A new paper about human mobility and the impact of time spent at destination by traveling individuals in epidemic models has been just published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

In the article:

Human mobility and time spent at destination: Impact on spatial epidemic spreading.
C Poletto, M Tizzoni and V Colizza
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 338:41-58 (2013) doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.08.032.

we present a detailed analysis of the interesting features that appear when a non-Markovian mobility is considered in a spatially structured epidemic model. We use the theoretical framework, already introduced in our previous work (Scientific Reports 2,476 2012), that takes into account the heterogeneous distribution of the length of stay of travelers and we compute the global epidemic threshold at the metapopulation level. Additionally, our framework allows us to study the effect of changes in the traveling behavior in response to the infection, by considering a scenario in which sick individuals do not leave their home location. Finally, we compare the results of our non-Markovian framework with those obtained with a classic Markovian approach and find relevant differences between the two, in the estimate of the epidemic invasion potential, as well as of the timing and the pattern of its spatial spread. These results highlight the importance of properly accounting for host trip duration in epidemic models and open the path to the inclusion of such an additional layer of complexity to the existing modeling approaches.

Comparison between the Markovian and the non-Markovian mobility dynamics. Fraction of infected cities as a function of R0 on a heterogeneous network with power-law degree distribution. The curve corresponding to a non-Markovian model is compared with the case of a Markovian mobility dynamics, where the traffic volume along each link is equal in both cases. Using a Markovian dynamics epidemics spread much more easily.

In memory of Duygu Balcan

9/18/2013

Today is not only about modeling infectious diseases or research; we decided to dedicate our ECCS satellite meeting Contagion'13 to the memory of Duygu Balcan, our young and bright collaborator who recently died for a car accident.
This is the second edition of a meeting that we organized with Duygu last year; but most importantly, many of our research directions have initiated along our collaboration with her and thanks to her work and dedication; and many others have been left open.
Alex Vespignani opened our satellite meeting dedicating a moment to Duygu - we'll make the video of the event soon available.

First paper on grippenet.fr: results on the representativeness of the grippenet.fr population

9/11/2013

Our first paper on the participatory surveillance project grippenet.fr just appeared in PLOS One:

Evaluating the feasibility and participants' representativeness of an online nationwide surveillance system for influenza in France
M Debin, C Turbelin, T Blanchon, I Bonmarin, A Falchi, T Hanslik, D Levy-Bruhl, C Poletto, V Colizza
PLOS One 8(9):e73675 (2013)

The paper presents the results of our first analysis on the data collected through grippenet.fr: it evaluates the feasibility of the implementation of the project during its launch season (2011/2012 influenza season) with respect to other partnering projects in Europe (Influenzanet), and assesses the representativeness of the grippenet.fr population.

In summary, our results show that:

grippenet.fr population covers all regions of France, with a relatively good representation in the majority of its regions (see on the right, grey regions)
women participate more than men
the age class [60-69] is overrepresented, whereas young adults ([18-29] class) are underrepresented
grippenet.fr population is more frequently employed, with a higher education
prevalence of asthma and diabetes is in good agreement with the general population, whereas grippenet.fr participants are more vaccinated
mobility of grippenet.fr participants nicely captures the most important features of french commuting (see below)

Our last paper on the role of time spent at destination receives media attention

New publication on the epidemiological effects of time spent at destination by travelers

In memory of Duygu Balcan

First paper on grippenet.fr: results on the representativeness of the grippenet.fr population

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