Dataset Information

Social contacts, vaccination decisions and influenza in Japan.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Contact patterns and vaccination decisions are fundamental to transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. We report on age-specific contact patterns in Japan and their effect on influenza vaccination behaviour.

Methods

Japanese adults (N=3146) were surveyed in Spring 2011 to assess the number of their social contacts within a 24?h period, defined as face-to-face conversations within 2?m, and gain insight into their influenza-related behaviour. We analysed the duration and location of contacts according to age. Additionally, we analysed the probability of vaccination and influenza infection in relation to the number of contacts controlling for individual's characteristics.

Results

The mean and median reported numbers of daily contacts were 15.3 and 12.0, respectively. School-aged children and young adults reported the greatest number of daily contacts, and individuals had the most contacts with those in the same age group. The age-specific contact patterns were different between men and women, and differed between weekdays and weekends. Children had fewer contacts between the same age groups during weekends than during weekdays, due to reduced contacts at school. The probability of vaccination increased with the number of contacts, controlling for age and household size. Influenza infection among unvaccinated individuals was higher than for those vaccinated, and increased with the number of contacts.

Conclusions

Contact patterns in Japan are age and gender specific. These contact patterns, as well as their interplay with vaccination decisions and infection risks, can help inform the parameterisation of mathematical models of disease transmission and the design of public health policies, to control disease transmission.

SUBMITTER: Ibuka Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4752620 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Social contacts, vaccination decisions and influenza in Japan.

Ibuka Yoko Y Ohkusa Yasushi Y Sugawara Tamie T Chapman Gretchen B GB Yamin Dan D Atkins Katherine E KE Taniguchi Kiyosu K Okabe Nobuhiko N Galvani Alison P AP

Journal of epidemiology and community health 20150930 2

<h4>Background</h4>Contact patterns and vaccination decisions are fundamental to transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. We report on age-specific contact patterns in Japan and their effect on influenza vaccination behaviour.<h4>Methods</h4>Japanese adults (N=3146) were surveyed in Spring 2011 to assess the number of their social contacts within a 24 h period, defined as face-to-face conversations within 2 m, and gain insight into their influenza-related behaviour. We analysed the duration ...[more]

PMID: 26424846

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Seasonal influenza vaccination coverage remains suboptimal in most developed countries, despite longstanding recommendations of public health organizations. The individual's decision regarding vaccination is located at the core of non-adherence. We analyzed large-scale data to identify personal and social behavioral patterns for influenza vaccination uptake, and develop a model to predict vaccination decision of individuals in an upcoming influenza season. METHODS:We analyzed primary data from the electronic medical records of a retrospective cohort of 250,000 individuals between the years 2007 and 2017, collected from 137 clinics. Individuals were randomly sampled from the database of Maccabi Healthcare Services. Maccabi's clients are representative of the Israeli population, reflect all demographic, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups and levels. We used several machine-learning models to predict whether a patient would get vaccinated in the future. Models' performance was evaluated based on the area under the ROC curve. RESULTS:The vaccination decision of an individual can be explained in two dimensions, Personal and social. The personal dimension is strongly shaped by a "default" behavior, such as vaccination timing in previous seasons and general health consumption, but can also be affected by temporal factors such as respiratory illness in the prior year. In the social dimension, a patient is more likely to become vaccinated in a given season if at least one member of his family also became vaccinated in the same season. Vaccination uptake was highly assertive with age, socioeconomic score, and geographic location. An XGBoost-based predictive model achieved an ROC-AUC score of 0.91 with accuracy and recall rates of 90% on the test set. Prediction relied mainly on the patient's individual and household vaccination status in the past, age, number of encounters with the healthcare system, number of prescribed medications, and indicators of chronic illnesses. CONCLUSIONS:Our ability to make an excellent prediction of the patient's decision sets a major step toward personalized influenza vaccination campaigns, and will help shape the next generation of targeted vaccination efforts.

Project description:BACKGROUND: The rate of influenza vaccination in Japan has declined over the past several decades. It is essential to identify community-specific factors that affect attitudes toward vaccination, but such parameters have not yet been fully determined in Japan. The present study used the Health Belief Model (HBM) to identify perceptions of influenza vaccination in a rural Japanese community. METHODS: All subjects were residents of a rural town in the southern part of Kyoto, Japan. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 846 randomly chosen households (containing 2,665 subjects). The survey explored gender, age, history of influenza, and factors associated with obtaining influenza vaccination, based on the HBM. RESULTS: A total of 1,182 valid responses (response rate, 44.4%) were received. Sources of information that were associated with vaccination decisions were medical facilities for children (OR=4.21; 95% CI: 1.17-15.1), workplaces for adults (OR=2.40; 95% CI: 1.22-4.75), medical facilities, town office and family for elderly subjects (OR=6.18; 95% CI: 2.42-15.7, OR=5.59; 95% CI: 2.26-13.8 and OR=3.29; 95% CI: 1.01-10.6). Subjects, in all age groups, who strongly agreed that the vaccine was effective were significantly more likely to be vaccinated (OR=10.5; 95% CI: 2.68-41.7 for children; OR=8.85; 95% CI: 4.61-16.9 for adults; OR=19.9; 95% CI: 8.28-48.0 for the elderly). The vaccination rate of elderly subjects who expressed concerns regarding adverse vaccine effects (OR=0.34, 95% CI: 0.15-0.78) or who were worried about practical barriers to the vaccination process (OR=0.13; 95% CI: 0.05-0.31) was significantly lower than in other populations. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that vaccination coverage can be increased if accurate information on personal risk, severity of influenza illness, and efficacy of vaccination are provided by responsible information sources that are easily accessible. Such sources include medical facilities and municipal offices. In addition, barriers and inconveniences associated with vaccination should be removed, especially if they impact on elderly people.

Project description:BackgroundModels of between-farm transmission of pathogens have identified service vehicles and social groups as risk factors mediating the spread of infection. Because of high levels of economic organization in much of the poultry industry, we examined the importance of company affiliation, as distinct from social contacts, in a model of the potential spread of avian influenza among broiler poultry farms in a poultry-dense region in the United States. The contribution of company affiliation to risk of between-farm disease transmission has not been previously studied.Methodology/principal findingsWe obtained data on the nature and frequency of business and social contacts through a national survey of broiler poultry growers in the United States. Daily rates of contact were estimated using Monte Carlo analysis. Stochastic modeling techniques were used to estimate the exposure risk posed by a single infectious farm to other farms in the region and relative risk of exposure for farms under different scenarios. The mean daily rate of vehicular contact was 0.82 vehicles/day. The magnitude of exposure risk ranged from <1% to 25% under varying parameters. Risk of between-farm transmission was largely driven by company affiliation, with farms in the same company group as the index farm facing as much as a 5-fold increase in risk compared to farms contracted with different companies. Employment of part-time workers contributed to significant increases in risk in most scenarios, notably for farms who hired day-laborers. Social visits were significantly less important in determining risk.Conclusions/significanceBiosecurity interventions should be based on information on industry structure and company affiliation, and include part-time workers as potentially unrecognized sources of viral transmission. Modeling efforts to understand pathogen transmission in the context of industrial food animal production should consider company affiliation in addition to geospatial factors and pathogen characteristics. Restriction of social contacts among farmers may be less useful in reducing between-farm transmission.

Dataset Information

Social contacts, vaccination decisions and influenza in Japan.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Social contacts, vaccination decisions and influenza in Japan.

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