Progress on the research of social contact pattern and infectious diseases transmission

Abstract

The pattern of social contact that the connection exists between people in social life tends to have certain rules. Hence, studying the laws of social contact of the population can improve the accuracy of modeling infectious diseases and provide scientific evidences for the spreading and intervention of infectious diseases transmitted by droplets or contact. This paper is a review that summarizes the current research methods of social contact pattern, the law of social contact and its significance to the spreading and prevention of infectious diseases. It finds that the survey methods of social contact mainly include direct observation, contact diaries and proximity sensors and the social contact patterns show regularities in multiple dimensions such as contact time, contact location and contact objects. Moreover, these regularities relevant to social contact patterns can apply to the mathematical model of infectious diseases and the evaluation of the effect of interventions, which provide the effective basis for the prevention and control of infectious diseases.