title: Perspective: human contact patterns and the spread of airborne infectious diseases.
abstract: Networks of social contacts channel the transmission of airborne infections. Emerging insights from fields of science as diverse as mathematics, population biology and the social sciences are beginning to reveal how the contact pattern of the hosts determines the spread and evolution of airborne infectious agents.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, Netherlands. jacco.wallinga@rivm.nl
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wallinga
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Edmunds
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kretzschmar
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000391:Air Microbiology; D002648:Child; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology