Student Behavior during a School Closure Caused by Pandemic Influenza A/H1N1

PLoS One

Edward Goldstein¹  Justin J. O'Hagan²  Martin Lajous²  Marc Lipsitch²  Leon Danon²  Joel C. Miller³ 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom;Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America;Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

关键词: Schools;    School closures;    Fevers;    Respiratory infections;    Behavior;    Infectious disease epidemiology;    Children;    Influenza;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.pone.0010425

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Background Many schools were temporarily closed in response to outbreaks of the recently emerged pandemic influenza A/H1N1 virus. The effectiveness of closing schools to reduce transmission depends largely on student/family behavior during the closure. We sought to improve our understanding of these behaviors.Methodology/Principal Findings To characterize this behavior, we surveyed students in grades 9–12 and parents of students in grades 5–8 about student activities during a weeklong closure of a school during the first months after the disease emerged. We found significant interaction with the community and other students–though less interaction with other students than during school–with the level of interaction increasing with grade.Conclusions Our results are useful for the future design of social distancing policies and to improving the ability of modeling studies to accurately predict their impact.

【 授权许可】

CC BY