Characteristics of US public schools with reported cases of novel influenza A (H1N1)
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Hoen-2010-Characteristics of U.pdf
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Author(s)
Hoen, Anne Gatewood
Buckeridge, David L.
Chan, Emily H.
Freifeld, Clark C.
Keller, Mikaela
Charland, Katia
Donnelly, Christl A.
Brownstein, John S.
Date Issued
April 2010
Journal
International Journal of Infectious Diseases
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Hoen, Anne Gatewood, David L. Buckeridge, Emily H. Chan, Clark C. Freifeld, Mikaela Keller, Katia Charland, Christl A. Donnelly, and John S. Brownstein. “Characteristics of US Public Schools with Reported Cases of Novel Influenza A (H1N1).” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 14 (September 2010): e6–e8. © 2010 International Society for Infectious Diseases
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Objective
The 2009 pandemic of influenza A (H1N1) has disproportionately affected children and young adults, resulting in attention by public health officials and the news media on schools as important settings for disease transmission and spread. We aimed to characterize US schools affected by novel influenza A (H1N1) relative to other schools in the same communities.
Methods
A database of US school-related cases was obtained by electronic news media monitoring for early reports of novel H1N1 influenza between April 23 and June 8, 2009. We performed a matched case–control study of 32 public primary and secondary schools that had one or more confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza and 6815 control schools located in the same 23 counties as case schools.
Results
Compared with controls from the same county, schools with reports of confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza were less likely to have a high proportion of economically disadvantaged students (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.385; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.166–0.894) and less likely to have older students (aOR 0.792; 95% CI 0.670–0.938).
Conclusions
We conclude that public schools with younger, more affluent students may be considered sentinels of the epidemic and may have played a role in its initial spread.
MIT Department
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2009.11.034
