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. 2017 Dec 6;12(12):e0186911.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186911. eCollection 2017.

Social mixing in Fiji: Who-eats-with-whom contact patterns and the implications of age and ethnic heterogeneity for disease dynamics in the Pacific Islands

Conall H Watson  1 , Jeremaia Coriakula  2 , Dung Tran Thi Ngoc  3 , Stefan Flasche  1 , Adam J Kucharski  1 , Colleen L Lau  4 , Nga Tran Vu Thieu  3 , Olivier le Polain de Waroux  1 , Kitione Rawalai  5 , Tan Trinh Van  2 , Mere Taufa  6 , Stephen Baker  3   7   8 , Eric J Nilles  9 , Mike Kama  6 , W John Edmunds  1
Affiliations

Social mixing in Fiji: Who-eats-with-whom contact patterns and the implications of age and ethnic heterogeneity for disease dynamics in the Pacific Islands

Conall H Watson et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Empirical data on contact patterns can inform dynamic models of infectious disease transmission. Such information has not been widely reported from Pacific islands, nor strongly multi-ethnic settings, and few attempts have been made to quantify contact patterns relevant for the spread of gastrointestinal infections. As part of enteric fever investigations, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of the general public in Fiji, finding that within the 9,650 mealtime contacts reported by 1,814 participants, there was strong like-with-like mixing by age and ethnicity, with higher contact rates amongst iTaukei than non-iTaukei Fijians. Extra-domiciliary lunchtime contacts follow these mixing patterns, indicating the overall data do not simply reflect household structures. Inter-ethnic mixing was most common amongst school-age children. Serological responses indicative of recent Salmonella Typhi infection were found to be associated, after adjusting for age, with increased contact rates between meal-sharing iTaukei, with no association observed for other contact groups. Animal ownership and travel within the geographical division were common. These are novel data that identify ethnicity as an important social mixing variable, and use retrospective mealtime contacts as a socially acceptable metric of relevance to enteric, contact and respiratory diseases that can be collected in a single visit to participants. Application of these data to other island settings will enable communicable disease models to incorporate locally relevant mixing patterns in parameterisation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
Distribution of daily contacts reported by A) all participants, B) iTaukei participants, C) non-iTaukei participants and D) participants stratified by age and ethnicity. Fig 1 A to C panels truncated at 50 contacts and D panels at 25 contacts for clarity as there were few reports of contact numbers in higher bands; densities are for the full range of reported value.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Age and ethnicity structured mixing matrices of reciprocity-weighted unique mealtime contacts per day.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Travel outside of the community in the past week.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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