Travel distance, frequency of return, and the spread of disease
Name
s41598-023-38840-0.pdf
Size
2.97 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
04e1837af1cd6fb547c391467d90569d
Author(s)
Heine, Cate
OโKeeffe, Kevin P.
Santi, Paolo
Yan, Li
Ratti, Carlo
Date Issued
August 28, 2023
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Heine, C., OโKeeffe, K.P., Santi, P. et al. Travel distance, frequency of return, and the spread of disease. Sci Rep 13, 14064 (2023).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Human mobility is a key driver of infectious disease spread. Recent literature has uncovered a clear pattern underlying the complexity of human mobility in cities: ๐โ
๐, the product of distance traveled r and frequency of return f per user to a given location, is invariant across space. This paper asks whether the invariant ๐โ
๐ also serves as a driver for epidemic spread, so that the risk associated with human movement can be modeled by a unifying variable ๐โ
๐. We use two large-scale datasets of individual human mobility to show that there is in fact a simple relation between r and f and both speed and spatial dispersion of disease spread. This discovery could assist in modeling spread of disease and inform travel policies in future epidemicsโbased not only on travel distance r but also on frequency of return f.
Subjects
Multidisciplinary
MIT Department
Senseable City Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1038/s41598-023-38840-0
