Quantification of Shared Air: A Social and Environmental Determinant of Airborne Disease Transmission

Wood, Robin; Morrow, Carl; Ginsberg, Samuel; Piccoli, Elizabeth; Kalil, Darryl; Sassi, Angelina; Walensky, Rochelle P.; Andrews, Jason R

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0106622

Cited by 50 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Employed individuals may have greater exposure to other people whilst commuting; in the workplace; and, perhaps, via more frequent attendance at social or commercial venues, made possible by their earnings. Alternatively, better constructed homes may be less well ventilated . This might explain the association between better household construction and diagnosed TB observed by Odone .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio‐economic gradients in prevalent tuberculosis in Zambia and the Western Cape of South Africa

Yates

Ayles

Leacy

et al. 2018

Tropical Med Int Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveTo describe the associations between socio‐economic position and prevalent tuberculosis in the 2010 ZAMSTAR Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey, one of the first large tuberculosis prevalence surveys in Southern Africa in the HIV era.MethodsThe main analyses used data on 34 446 individuals in Zambia and 30 017 individuals in South Africa with evaluable tuberculosis culture results. Logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios for prevalent TB by two measures of socio‐economic position: household wealth, derived from data on assets using principal components analysis, and individual educational attainment. Mediation analysis was used to evaluate potential mechanisms for the observed social gradients.ResultsThe quartile with highest household wealth index in Zambia and South Africa had, respectively, 0.55 (95% CI 0.33–0.92) times and 0.70 (95% CI 0.54–0.93) times the adjusted odds of prevalent TB of the bottom quartile. College or university‐educated individuals in Zambia and South Africa had, respectively, 0.25 (95% CI 0.12–0.54) and 0.42 (95% CI 0.25–0.70) times the adjusted odds of prevalent TB of individuals who had received only primary education. We found little evidence that these associations were mediated via several key proximal risk factors for TB, including HIV status.ConclusionThese data suggest that social determinants of TB remain important even in the context of generalised HIV epidemics.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio‐economic gradients in prevalent tuberculosis in Zambia and the Western Cape of South Africa

Yates

Ayles

Leacy

et al. 2018

Tropical Med Int Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The amount of occupancy in buildings, influenced by building type, occupancy schedule, and indoor activity, facilitates the accrual of human-associated microorganisms [34,44,55,56]. Higher occupant density and increased indoor activity level typically increases social interaction and connectivity, through direct contact, indirect contact with shared surfaces, or via shared air, all of which may facilitate the spread of disease [57][58][59]. For example, schools and libraries, which have long occupancy schedules, high occupant density, and high turnover of individuals throughout spaces in a day, often have high concentrations of putative human pathogens in the air [60,61].…”

Section: Insularity or Connectivity Contributes To Microbial Transmismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Disruption of microbial transfer can be achieved in realtime using ventilation with sufficient air exchanges and/or directed air flow to reduce the impact of potentially contaminated air [57,58]. This has been widely implemented in health care settings or clean rooms and spaces, and has been proposed for other crowded public spaces [181].…”

Section: Draining or Filling The Building Microbial Reservoirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building upon current knowledge and techniques of indoor microbiology to construct the next era of theory into microorganisms, health, and the built environment

Horve

Lloyd

Mhuireach

et al. 2019

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

113

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the constructed habitat in which we spend up to 90% of our time, architectural design influences occupants' behavioral patterns, interactions with objects, surfaces, rituals, the outside environment, and each other. Within this built environment, human behavior and building design contribute to the accrual and dispersal of microorganisms; it is a collection of fomites that transfer microorganisms; reservoirs that collect biomass; structures that induce human or air movement patterns; and space types that encourage proximity or isolation between humans whose personal microbial clouds disperse cells into buildings. There have been recent calls to incorporate building microbiology into occupant health and exposure research and standards, yet the built environment is largely viewed as a repository for microorganisms which are to be eliminated, instead of a habitat which is inexorably linked to the microbial influences of building inhabitants. Health sectors have re-evaluated the role of microorganisms in health, incorporating microorganisms into prevention and treatment protocols, yet no paradigm shift has occurred with respect to microbiology of the built environment, despite calls to do so. Technological and logistical constraints often preclude our ability to link health outcomes to indoor microbiology, yet sufficient study exists to inform the theory and implementation of the next era of research and intervention in the built environment. This review presents built environment characteristics in relation to human health and disease, explores some of the current experimental strategies and interventions which explore health in the built environment, and discusses an emerging model for fostering indoor microbiology rather than fearing it.

show abstract

“…Enabling environments are frequently poorly ventilated congregate settings, such as households, public transport, schools, and work places, resulting in high effective contact rate between infectious and susceptible individuals 1,2 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An infectious individual with varying effective contact rate (ranging from 5 to 30 y r -1 ) was introduced among 100, 000 fully susceptible individuals and we observed the number of individuals in all five states at stability point of a TB epidemic. This range of effective contact rate was selected because β = 5−10 y r -1 is related to TB transmission in the United Kingdom in 1900 − 1950 4 , β = 15 y r -1 is related to TB transmission in schools in South Africa 2 , and β = 30 y r -1 is related to TB transmission in prisons in South Africa 10 . Here, we explore the population impact of effective contact rate by comparing the number of newly infected and that of reinfected individuals at stability point of a TB epidemic, with increasing effective contact rate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of effective contact rate and post treatment immune status on population tuberculosis infection and disease using a mathematical model

2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tuberculosis (TB) disease burden is determined by both Background: infection and progression rate to disease. Progression rate varies by immune status, with prior infection in high burdened settings significantly reducing the progression to disease from subsequent reinfections and completion of successful treatment associated with increased risk of subsequent TB disease. Novel studies of TB vaccines are now underway targeting high risk individuals who have completed successful combination TB chemotherapy for active TB.In our study, we explored the impact of effective contact rate (β) and Methods: post-treatment immune status on population TB burden using a mathematical model incorporating five immunological states; susceptible, newly infected, reinfected, active TB and treated TB.We found that the number of newly infected individuals increased with Results: increasing values of β< 10yr , but declined when β> 10yr . Corresponding numbers of reinfected individuals increased with increasing values of β irrespective of post-treatment immune status. Furthermore, we noted that the number of active TB cases decreased by 7 -17% when treated individuals moved to either newly infected or reinfected immune states, respectively, rather than to the fully susceptible state at values of β< 10yr . The corresponding declines in TB burden were only 2 -7% at values of β> 10yr . Results show that TB prevalence in high burden settings is primarily driven by effective contact rates, which are significantly modified by pre-and post-treatment immune factors.The observation that impact of post-treatment immune status Conclusions: modification on population burden may be diminished in very high burdened settings will be important for vaccine design.

show abstract

Quantification of Shared Air: A Social and Environmental Determinant of Airborne Disease Transmission

Cited by 50 publications

References 25 publications

Socio‐economic gradients in prevalent tuberculosis in Zambia and the Western Cape of South Africa

Socio‐economic gradients in prevalent tuberculosis in Zambia and the Western Cape of South Africa

Building upon current knowledge and techniques of indoor microbiology to construct the next era of theory into microorganisms, health, and the built environment

Impact of effective contact rate and post treatment immune status on population tuberculosis infection and disease using a mathematical model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About