Zika Virus-Related News Coverage and Online Behavior, United States, Guatemala, and Brazil.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Southwell BG
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4918164 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Zika Virus-Related News Coverage and Online Behavior, United States, Guatemala, and Brazil.
Southwell Brian G BG Dolina Suzanne S Jimenez-Magdaleno Karla K Squiers Linda B LB Kelly Bridget J BJ
Emerging infectious diseases 20160715 7
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Project description:In recent years, many studies have drawn attention to the important role of collective awareness and human behaviour during epidemic outbreaks. A number of modelling efforts have investigated the interaction between the disease transmission dynamics and human behaviour change mediated by news coverage and by information spreading in the population. Yet, given the scarcity of data on public awareness during an epidemic, few studies have relied on empirical data. Here, we use fine-grained, geo-referenced data from three online sources-Wikipedia, the GDELT Project and the Internet Archive-to quantify population-scale information seeking about the 2016 Zika virus epidemic in the U.S., explicitly linking such behavioural signal to epidemiological data. Geo-localized Wikipedia pageview data reveal that visiting patterns of Zika-related pages in Wikipedia were highly synchronized across the United States and largely explained by exposure to national television broadcast. Contrary to the assumption of some theoretical epidemic models, news volume and Wikipedia visiting patterns were not significantly correlated with the magnitude or the extent of the epidemic. Attention to Zika, in terms of Zika-related Wikipedia pageviews, was high at the beginning of the outbreak, when public health agencies raised an international alert and triggered media coverage, but subsequently exhibited an activity profile that suggests nonlinear dependencies and memory effects in the relation between information seeking, media pressure, and disease dynamics. This calls for a new and more general modelling framework to describe the interaction between media exposure, public awareness and disease dynamics during epidemic outbreaks.
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Project description:BackgroundZika virus (ZIKV) can be transmitted sexually but the risk of sexual transmission remains unknown. Most evidence of sexual transmission is from partners of infected travelers returning from areas with ZIKV circulation.MethodsWe used data from the US national arboviral disease surveillance system on travel- and sexually acquired ZIKV disease cases during 2016-2017 to develop individual-level simulations for estimating risk of male-to-female, male-to-male, and female-to-male sexual transmission of ZIKV via vaginal and/or anal intercourse. We specified parametric distributions to characterize individual-level variability of parameters for ZIKV persistence and sexual behaviors.ResultsUsing ZIKV RNA persistence in semen/vaginal fluids to approximate infectiousness duration, male-to-male transmission had the highest estimated probability (1.3% [95% confidence interval, CI, .4%-6.0%] per anal sex act), followed by male-to-female and female-to-male transmission (0.4% [95% CI, .3%-.6%] per vaginal/anal sex act and 0.1% [95% CI, 0%-.8%] per vaginal sex act, respectively). Models using viral isolation in semen vs RNA detection to approximate infectiousness duration predicted greater risk of sexual transmission.ConclusionsWhile likely insufficient to maintain sustained transmission, the estimated risk of ZIKV transmission through unprotected sex is not trivial and is especially important for pregnant women, as ZIKV infection can cause severe congenital disorders.
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