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Regional Relative Risk, a Physics-Based Metric for Characterizing Airborne Infectious Disease Transmission.
Michael B Dillon1, Charles F Dillon2
1Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorygrid.250008.f, Livermore, California, USA.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
|August 25, 2021
Summary
A new theory models airborne infectious disease spread by focusing on single-particle infection events. This approach introduces regional relative risk, a metric effective for predicting disease transmission across various spatial scales with minimal data.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Physics
- Biology
Background:
- Airborne infectious diseases spread across diverse spatial scales.
- Predictive models are crucial for understanding transmission and control efficacy.
- Current models can be enhanced by considering single-particle infection events.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a new physics- and biology-based theory for airborne infection via single particles.
- To introduce and apply the regional relative risk metric for comparing disease risk between regions.
- To assess the applicability of the theory and metric for outdoor transmission events.
Main Methods:
- Developed a new theory extending existing models to single airborne particle infection.
- Proposed the regional relative risk metric, adaptable for various spatial scales.
- Applied the metric to outdoor transmission over 50 m to 20 km, validating with outbreak data.
Main Results:
- The theory accommodates variations in individual exposure and pathogen dose-response.
- Regional relative risk provides robust estimates even with diverse exposure scenarios.
- Model predictions align with historical outbreak data for outdoor transmission.
Conclusions:
- The new theory and regional relative risk metric offer a robust framework for analyzing airborne disease transmission.
- Minimal input data is needed for the metric in many common outdoor scenarios.
- Future work should explore applications for indoor environments and other spatial scales.
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