IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i11p6941-d832564.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Mobility and Droplet-Transmissible Pediatric Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Ryusuke Ae

    (Division of Public Health, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Yakushiji 3311-1, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan)

  • Yoshihide Shibata

    (Division of Public Health, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Yakushiji 3311-1, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Gifu College, 2236-2 Kamimakuwa, Motosu 501-0495, Gifu, Japan)

  • Toshiki Furuno

    (Advanced Course for Interdisciplinary Technology Development, National Institute of Technology, Gifu College, 2236-2 Kamimakuwa, Motosu 501-0495, Gifu, Japan)

  • Teppei Sasahara

    (Division of Public Health, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Yakushiji 3311-1, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan)

  • Yosikazu Nakamura

    (Division of Public Health, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Yakushiji 3311-1, Shimotsuke 329-0498, Tochigi, Japan)

  • Hiromichi Hamada

    (Department of Pediatrics, Tokyo Women’s Medical University Yachiyo Medical Center, 477-96 Owada-Shinden, Yachiyo 276-0046, Chiba, Japan
    Department of Pediatrics, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba-shi 260-8670, Chiba, Japan)

Abstract

The study tested the hypothesis that human mobility may be a potential factor affecting reductions in droplet-transmissible pediatric infectious diseases (PIDs) during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic mitigation period in 2020. An ecological study was conducted using two publicly available datasets: surveillance on infectious diseases collected by the Japanese government and COVID-19 community mobility reports presented by Google. The COVID-19 community mobility reports demonstrated percentage reductions in the movement of people over time in groceries and pharmacies, parks, and transit stations. We compared the weekly trends in the number of patients with droplet-transmissible PIDs identified in 2020 with those identified in the previous years (2015–2019) and assessed the correlations between the numbers of patients and percentage decreases in human mobility during 2020. Despite experiencing their peak seasons, dramatic reductions were found in the numbers of patients with pharyngoconjunctival fever (PCF) and group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis after the tenth week of 2020. Beyond the 20th week, no seasonal peaks were observed in the number of patients with all PIDs identified in 2020. Significant correlations were found between the percentage decreases in human mobility in transit stations and the number of patients with hand-foot-and-mouth disease (Pearson correlation coefficient [95% confidence interval]: 0.65 [0.44–0.79]), PCF (0.47 [0.21–0.67]), respiratory syncytial virus infection (0.45 [0.19–0.66]), and GAS pharyngitis (0.34 [0.06–0.58]). The highest correlations were found in places underlying potential human-to-human contacts among adults. These findings suggest that reductions in human mobility for adults might contribute to decreases in the number of children with droplet-transmissible PIDs by the potential prevention of adult-to-child transmission.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryusuke Ae & Yoshihide Shibata & Toshiki Furuno & Teppei Sasahara & Yosikazu Nakamura & Hiromichi Hamada, 2022. "Human Mobility and Droplet-Transmissible Pediatric Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-11, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:11:p:6941-:d:832564
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6941/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6941/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:11:p:6941-:d:832564. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.