A0382
Title: Commuting and the spread of infectious diseases: A spatio-temporal analysis of influenza in Germany
Authors: Manuel Stapper - WWU Muenster (Germany) [presenting]
Abstract: The spread of infectious diseases is a major public health concern, with population mobility and commuting as two important driving factors. Frequently used epidemiologic models are extended by incorporating commuting network data to examine the spread of Influenza in Germany between 2001 and 2019. It is demonstrated that the established finding of human mobility to follow a power-law is reflected in a power-law of contact probabilities under certain assumptions. A novel type of weight matrix for the spatio-temporal model is built from contact probabilities, capable of reflecting the number of potentially hazardous interactions between residents of two administrative districts. The results enable an exploration of the spread's typical paths and the assessment of policy measures through forecasting under different conditions.
