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Risk Index of Regional Infection Expansion of COVID-19: Moving Direction Entropy Study Using Mobility Data and Its
Yukio Ohsawa1, Yi Sun1, Kaira Sekiguchi1
1School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
|July 22, 2024
Summary
Moving Direction Entropy (MDE) quantifies community contact risk. High MDE correlates with COVID-19 spread, highlighting its importance for pandemic control and public health strategies.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology and Public Health
- Mobility Data Analysis
- Infectious Disease Dynamics
Background:
- COVID-19 pandemic necessitated policies like "stay home" to limit inter-community contact.
- These policies are challenged by individuals moving between diverse, unreported communities, posing a latent risk.
- Assessing the potential for such contacts is crucial for effective pandemic mitigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a physical index for assessing the potential for contact between individuals from diverse communities.
- To create an indicator of SARS-CoV-2 spread risk, usable in conjunction with existing indices.
- To evaluate the utility of Moving Direction Entropy (MDE) as a measure of inter-community contact risk.
Main Methods:
- Proposed Moving Direction Entropy (MDE) to quantify the diversity of individual movement directions within local regions.
- Calculated MDE for inland municipalities in Tokyo using smartphone mobility data pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Compared MDE's correlation with infectious disease spread against other indices like restaurant density, across diseases with varying infectivity.
Main Results:
- MDE values demonstrated significant stability across different time periods (Spearman's rank correlation >0.9).
- MDE strongly correlated with COVID-19 infection rates in 53 inland regions (average 0.76 during expansion).
- COVID-19 spread accelerated in high-MDE regions, outperforming restaurant density as a predictor during emergency declarations; MDE increased in areas with high influx or daytime movement.
Conclusions:
- Monitoring regional MDE values is recommended for reducing infection spread risk.
- A heatmap visualization method for MDE is presented to increase public awareness of contact-facilitating behaviors during pandemics.
- MDE serves as a valuable tool for policymakers and the public to understand and mitigate infectious disease transmission risks.
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