Everyday travel within a city — especially commuting — is an important factor influencing the spread of certain diseases in urban settings, according to new research.
Everyday travel within a city — especially commuting — is an important factor influencing the spread of certain diseases in urban settings, according to new research.
The study, co-authored by MIT researchers, uses aggregated mobile phone data to trace the spread of dengue, a mosquito-borne virus, in Singapore during 2013 and 2014. While many studies have linked human travel to the spread of disease over long distances, the current finding is notable for its granularity, tracking the path of contagion over shorter distances and times.
Future research will be needed to determine whether the findings also apply to airborne diseases, such as the flu.
“Human mobility is an important factor in the vector-borne disease epidemics at the urban scales,” says Emanuele Massaro, corresponding author of a new paper outlining the results of the study. The new method, he notes, means that researchers looking at the issue on a city-wide basis “do not need very detailed tracking of individuals that could infringe on privacy, but [can still use] models that capture the key facet of mobility: commuting.”
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Image: A new study co-authored by MIT researchers, looking at the spread of dengue fever in Singapore, shows how commuting affects the spread of illness in urban settings. CREDIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
