At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChanging collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis Article was mistakenly not made Open Access when originally published; this has now been amended, and information about the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License has been added into the 'Additional information' section.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the version of this Article originally published, the affiliation for author Catherine Linard was incorrectly stated as 'Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK'. The correct affiliation is 'Spatial Epidemiology Lab (SpELL), Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium'. The affiliation for author Hongjie Yu was also incorrectly stated as 'Department of Statistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA'.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe global population at risk from mosquito-borne diseases-including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika-is expanding in concert with changes in the distribution of two key vectors: Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The distribution of these species is largely driven by both human movement and the presence of suitable climate. Using statistical mapping techniques, we show that human movement patterns explain the spread of both species in Europe and the United States following their introduction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe breadcrumbs we leave behind when using our mobile phones—who somebody calls, for how long, and from where—contain unprecedented insights about us and our societies. Researchers have compared the recent availability of large-scale behavioral datasets, such as the ones generated by mobile phones, to the invention of the microscope, giving rise to the new field of computational social science.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Travel restrictions were implemented on an unprecedented scale in 2015 in Sierra Leone to contain and eliminate Ebola virus disease. However, the impact of epidemic travel restrictions on mobility itself remains difficult to measure with traditional methods. New 'big data' approaches using mobile phone data can provide, in near real-time, the type of information needed to guide and evaluate control measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mathematical models of human mobility have demonstrated a great potential for infectious disease epidemiology in contexts of data scarcity. While the commonly used gravity model involves parameter tuning and is thus difficult to implement without reference data, the more recent radiation model based on population densities is parameter-free, but biased. In this study we introduce the new impedance model, by analogy with electricity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPoverty is one of the most important determinants of adverse health outcomes globally, a major cause of societal instability and one of the largest causes of lost human potential. Traditional approaches to measuring and targeting poverty rely heavily on census data, which in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are unavailable or out-of-date. Alternate measures are needed to complement and update estimates between censuses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present the data from a crowdsourced project seeking to replicate findings in independent laboratories before (rather than after) they are published. In this Pre-Publication Independent Replication (PPIR) initiative, 25 research groups attempted to replicate 10 moral judgment effects from a single laboratory's research pipeline of unpublished findings. The 10 effects were investigated using online/lab surveys containing psychological manipulations (vignettes) followed by questionnaires.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Numerous countries around the world are approaching malaria elimination. Until global eradication is achieved, countries that successfully eliminate the disease will contend with parasite reintroduction through international movement of infected people. Human-mediated parasite mobility is also important within countries near elimination, as it drives parasite flows that affect disease transmission on a subnational scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Sudden impact disasters often result in the displacement of large numbers of people. These movements can occur prior to events, due to early warning messages, or take place post-event due to damages to shelters and livelihoods as well as a result of long-term reconstruction efforts. Displaced populations are especially vulnerable and often in need of support.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLarge-scale data from digital infrastructure, like mobile phone networks, provides rich information on the behavior of millions of people in areas affected by climate stress. Using anonymized data on mobility and calling behavior from 5.1 million Grameenphone users in Barisal Division and Chittagong District, Bangladesh, we investigate the effect of Cyclone Mahasen, which struck Barisal and Chittagong in May 2013.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffective response to infectious disease epidemics requires focused control measures in areas predicted to be at high risk of new outbreaks. We aimed to test whether mobile operator data could predict the early spatial evolution of the 2010 Haiti cholera epidemic. Daily case data were analysed for 78 study areas from October 16 to December 16, 2010.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Societal instability and crises can cause rapid, large-scale movements. These movements are poorly understood and difficult to measure but strongly impact health. Data on these movements are important for planning response efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study we analyze the travel patterns of 500,000 individuals in Cote d'Ivoire using mobile phone call data records. By measuring the uncertainties of movements using entropy, considering both the frequencies and temporal correlations of individual trajectories, we find that the theoretical maximum predictability is as high as 88%. To verify whether such a theoretical limit can be approached, we implement a series of Markov chain (MC) based models to predict the actual locations visited by each user.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaximum anterior positioning of the tibia relative to the femur during posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) reconstruction is essential for achieving a tight graft and stable joint. A Schanz pin inserted in the proximal tibia is sometimes used to pull the proximal tibia forward during tensioning of the graft in PCL reconstruction. This study was designed to evaluate whether this technique provides more anterior translation than the traditional anterior drawer technique.
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