Paper out on the role of age-dependent contact and travel behaviour on the 2009 H1N1 spread

Adults are important vehicles of long-range spread of epidemics for they high distance travels. On the other hand, children are crucial actors of the local trasmission for their intense social activity at schools. We address the interplay between these two mechanisms and its impact on the geographical spread of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in our paper 

Age-specific contacts and travel patterns in the spatial spread of 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic
A Apolloni, C Poletto, V Colizza.
BMC Infectious Diseases 13, 176 (2013).

The two heat-maps above characterize the impact of the contact structure on the invasion potential of an epidemic (quantified by global invasion parameter, R*). The latter is altered by the level of assortativity between children and adult groups (y-axis), and the ratio between adult and children social contacts (x-axis). Have a look here for more details.