Work and play:

1
Work and play Disease spread, social behaviour
and data collection in schools
Dr Jenny Gage, Dr Andrew Conlan, Dr Ken Eames
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Metapopulation models

• Complicated word for something familiar.
• Population patches lots of infection within a
  patch, less transmission between patches.

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Network models
Show connections in a population.

• Can identify the most important individuals.
• But hard to measure real networks.

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Network models
Who do you think are the most important
individuals in this population? Who would you
immunise to prevent spread of disease?
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Patterns of infection measles
No. measles cases
1945
1985
1965

• Mostly infects children.

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Patterns of infection measles
big epidemic every 2 years
No. measles cases
1945
1985
1965

• Mostly infects children.
• Regular pattern of epidemics.

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Patterns of infection measles
big epidemic every 2 years
1968 vaccination begins
No. measles cases
1945
1985
1965

• Mostly infects children.
• Regular pattern of epidemics.
• Controlled by vaccination.

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Discussion

• Unless you live in a very small village, you
  probably dont meet with everyone else who lives
  where you do.
• So how do diseases get passed on?
• Schools are important why?

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• Lots of people close together in the same place.
• Many susceptibles - ideal for an epidemic.

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Discussion

• School children are the main group who spread
  measles
• But how does an epidemic spread through a school?

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Even within a small school, theres a lot of
spatial structure
Class
Class
Class
Playground
Dining hall
Travel
Class
Class
Class
but how do different parts interact?
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Even within a small school, theres a lot of
spatial structure
Class
Class
Class
This is where we needed schools to help us
Playground
Dining hall
Travel
Class
Class
Class
but how do different parts interact?
13
Example of network data
Primary school network, pupils aged 10-11.
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Discussion
What can you tell from this network?
15

• It is likely that
• green and red distinguish between boys and girls
• someone was absent

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We also see cliques where everyone names everyone
else
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Why is this near-clique surprising?
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Mixing patterns in schools

• Year 9 and Year 10 secondary students
• Collected primary data for us by taking
  questionnaires into one or more of their local
  primary schools for the children to fill in.
• They then did some preliminary work on the data
  for us, anonymising the data to ensure that
  ethical guidelines were followed.
• We then collated their data and put it into
  network diagrams so we could analyse the mixing
  patterns of the primary school children.