TITLE:
Meaningful Contact Estimates among Children in a Childcare Centre with Applications to Contact Matrices in Infectious Disease Modelling
AUTHORS:
Darren Flynn-Primrose, Nickolas Hoover, Zahra Mohammadi, Austin Hung, Jason Lee, Miggi Tomovici, Edward W. Thommes, Dion Neame, Monica G. Cojocaru
KEYWORDS:
Contact Matrices, Agent Based Model of Child Care, High Time Resolution Model, Infectious Disease Applications
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics,
Vol.10 No.5,
May
18,
2022
ABSTRACT: We present a mathematical model of a day care center in a developed country (such as Canada), in order to use it for the estimation of individual-to-individual contact rates in young age groups and in an educational group setting. In our model, individuals in the population are children (ages 1.5 to 4 years) and staff, and their interactions are modelled explicitly: person-to-person and person-to-environment, with a very high time resolution. Their movement and meaningful contact patterns are simulated and then calibrated with collected data from a child care facility as a case study. We present these calibration results as a first part in the further development of our model for testing and estimating the spread of infectious diseases within child care centers.