title: Estimating the impact of school closure on social mixing behaviour and the transmission of close contact infections in eight European countries.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mathematical modelling of infectious disease is increasingly used to help guide public health policy. As directly transmitted infections, such as influenza and tuberculosis, require contact between individuals, knowledge about contact patterns is a necessary pre-requisite of accurate model predictions. Of particular interest is the potential impact of school closure as a means of controlling pandemic influenza (and potentially other pathogens).
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper uses a population-based prospective survey of mixing patterns in eight European countries to study the relative change in the basic reproduction number (R0--the average number of secondary cases from a typical primary case in a fully susceptible population) on weekdays versus weekends and during regular versus holiday periods. The relative change in R0 during holiday periods and weekends gives an indication of the impact collective school closures (and prophylactic absenteeism) may have during a pandemic.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Social contact patterns differ substantially when comparing weekdays to the weekend and regular to holiday periods mainly due to the reduction in work and/or school contacts. For most countries the basic reproduction number decreases from the week to weekends and regular to holiday periods by about 21% and 17%, respectively. However for other countries no significant decrease was observed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We use a large-scale social contact survey in eight different European countries to gain insights in the relative change in the basic reproduction number on weekdays versus weekends and during regular versus holiday periods. The resulting estimates indicate that school closure can have a substantial impact on the spread of a newly emerging infectious disease that is transmitted via close (non sexual) contacts.
authors: Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics, Hasselt University, Agoralaan 1, B3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium. niel.hens@uhasselt.be
authors: Niel
authors: N
authors: Hens
authors: Girma Minalu
authors: GM
authors: Ayele
authors: Nele
authors: N
authors: Goeyvaerts
authors: Marc
authors: M
authors: Aerts
authors: Joel
authors: J
authors: Mossong
authors: John W
authors: JW
authors: Edmunds
authors: Philippe
authors: P
authors: Beutels
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000635:transmission*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012574:Schools; D012919:Social Behavior