title: On the role of social clusters in the transmission of infectious diseases.
abstract: We introduce a spatial stochastic model for the spread of tuberculosis and HIV. We have three parameters: the size of the social cluster for each individual and the infection rates within and outside the social cluster. We show that when the infection rate from outside the cluster is low (this is presumably the case for tuberculosis and HIV) then an epidemic is possible only if the typical social cluster and the within infection rate are large enough. These results may be important in formulating new hypotheses for the transmission of TB and HIV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80933-7150, USA. schinazi@math.uccs.edu
authors.forename: Rinaldo B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Schinazi
mesh_terms: D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011156:Population Density; D012307:Risk Factors; D012944:Social Support; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission*