scholarly journals Monitoring the Spatial Spread of COVID-19 and Effectiveness of Control Measures Through Human Movement Data: Proposal for a Predictive Model Using Big Data Analytics

10.2196/24432 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. e24432
Author(s):  
Zhenlong Li ◽  
Xiaoming Li ◽  
Dwayne Porter ◽  
Jiajia Zhang ◽  
Yuqin Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Mobile Phone Data ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Mobility Data

Background Human movement is one of the forces that drive the spatial spread of infectious diseases. To date, reducing and tracking human movement during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven effective in limiting the spread of the virus. Existing methods for monitoring and modeling the spatial spread of infectious diseases rely on various data sources as proxies of human movement, such as airline travel data, mobile phone data, and banknote tracking. However, intrinsic limitations of these data sources prevent us from systematic monitoring and analyses of human movement on different spatial scales (from local to global). Objective Big data from social media such as geotagged tweets have been widely used in human mobility studies, yet more research is needed to validate the capabilities and limitations of using such data for studying human movement at different geographic scales (eg, from local to global) in the context of global infectious disease transmission. This study aims to develop a novel data-driven public health approach using big data from Twitter coupled with other human mobility data sources and artificial intelligence to monitor and analyze human movement at different spatial scales (from global to regional to local). Methods We will first develop a database with optimized spatiotemporal indexing to store and manage the multisource data sets collected in this project. This database will be connected to our in-house Hadoop computing cluster for efficient big data computing and analytics. We will then develop innovative data models, predictive models, and computing algorithms to effectively extract and analyze human movement patterns using geotagged big data from Twitter and other human mobility data sources, with the goal of enhancing situational awareness and risk prediction in public health emergency response and disease surveillance systems. Results This project was funded as of May 2020. We have started the data collection, processing, and analysis for the project. Conclusions Research findings can help government officials, public health managers, emergency responders, and researchers answer critical questions during the pandemic regarding the current and future infectious risk of a state, county, or community and the effectiveness of social/physical distancing practices in curtailing the spread of the virus. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/24432

scholarly journals Monitoring the Spatial Spread of COVID-19 and Effectiveness of Control Measures Through Human Movement Data: Proposal for a Predictive Model Using Big Data Analytics (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenlong Li ◽  
Xiaoming Li ◽  
Dwayne Porter ◽  
Jiajia Zhang ◽  
Yuqin Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Mobile Phone Data ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Mobility Data

BACKGROUND Human movement is one of the forces that drive the spatial spread of infectious diseases. To date, reducing and tracking human movement during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven effective in limiting the spread of the virus. Existing methods for monitoring and modeling the spatial spread of infectious diseases rely on various data sources as proxies of human movement, such as airline travel data, mobile phone data, and banknote tracking. However, intrinsic limitations of these data sources prevent us from systematic monitoring and analyses of human movement on different spatial scales (from local to global). OBJECTIVE Big data from social media such as geotagged tweets have been widely used in human mobility studies, yet more research is needed to validate the capabilities and limitations of using such data for studying human movement at different geographic scales (eg, from local to global) in the context of global infectious disease transmission. This study aims to develop a novel data-driven public health approach using big data from Twitter coupled with other human mobility data sources and artificial intelligence to monitor and analyze human movement at different spatial scales (from global to regional to local). METHODS We will first develop a database with optimized spatiotemporal indexing to store and manage the multisource data sets collected in this project. This database will be connected to our in-house Hadoop computing cluster for efficient big data computing and analytics. We will then develop innovative data models, predictive models, and computing algorithms to effectively extract and analyze human movement patterns using geotagged big data from Twitter and other human mobility data sources, with the goal of enhancing situational awareness and risk prediction in public health emergency response and disease surveillance systems. RESULTS This project was funded as of May 2020. We have started the data collection, processing, and analysis for the project. CONCLUSIONS Research findings can help government officials, public health managers, emergency responders, and researchers answer critical questions during the pandemic regarding the current and future infectious risk of a state, county, or community and the effectiveness of social/physical distancing practices in curtailing the spread of the virus. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/24432

scholarly journals Mapping imported malaria in Bangladesh using parasite genetic and human mobility data

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiao-Han Chang ◽  
Amy Wesolowski ◽  
Ipsita Sinha ◽  
Christopher G Jacob ◽  
Ayesha Mahmud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Epidemiological Surveillance ◽  
Mobile Phone Data ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
Imported Infections ◽  
National Control

For countries aiming for malaria elimination, travel of infected individuals between endemic areas undermines local interventions. Quantifying parasite importation has therefore become a priority for national control programs. We analyzed epidemiological surveillance data, travel surveys, parasite genetic data, and anonymized mobile phone data to measure the spatial spread of malaria parasites in southeast Bangladesh. We developed a genetic mixing index to estimate the likelihood of samples being local or imported from parasite genetic data and inferred the direction and intensity of parasite flow between locations using an epidemiological model integrating the travel survey and mobile phone calling data. Our approach indicates that, contrary to dogma, frequent mixing occurs in low transmission regions in the southwest, and elimination will require interventions in addition to reducing imported infections from forested regions. Unlike risk maps generated from clinical case counts alone, therefore, our approach distinguishes areas of frequent importation as well as high transmission.

scholarly journals Existing human mobility data sources poorly predicted the spatial spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Madagascar

Epidemics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 100534
Author(s):  
Tanjona Ramiadantsoa ◽  
C. Jessica E. Metcalf ◽  
Antso Hasina Raherinandrasana ◽  
Santatra Randrianarisoa ◽  
Benjamin L. Rice ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Mobility ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Mobility Data

scholarly journals Existing human mobility data sources poorly predicted the spatial spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Madagascar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanjona Ramiadantsoa ◽  
C. Jessica E. Metcalf ◽  
Antso Hasina Raherinandrasana ◽  
Santatra Randrianarisoa ◽  
Benjamin L. Rice ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Gravity Model ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Health Planning ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Mobile Phone Data ◽  
Migration Flow ◽  
Mobility Data

For emerging epidemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, quantifying travel is a key component of developing accurate predictive models of disease spread to inform public health planning. However, in many LMICs, traditional data sets on travel such as commuting surveys as well as non-traditional sources such as mobile phone data are lacking, or, where available, have only rarely been leveraged by the public health community. Evaluating the accuracy of available data to measure transmission-relevant travel may be further hampered by limited reporting of suspected and laboratory confirmed infections. Here, we leverage case data collected as part of a COVID-19 dashboard collated via daily reports from the Malagasy authorities on reported cases of SARS-CoV-2 across the 22 regions of Madagascar. We compare the order of the timing of when cases were reported with predictions from a SARS-CoV-2 metapopulation model of Madagascar informed using various measures of connectivity including a gravity model based on different measures of distance, Internal Migration Flow data, and mobile phone data. Overall, the models based on mobile phone connectivity and the gravity-based on Euclidean distance best predicted the observed spread. The ranks of the regions most remote from the capital were more difficult to predict but interestingly, regions where the mobile phone connectivity model was more accurate differed from those where the gravity model was most accurate. This suggests that there may be additional features of mobility or connectivity that were consistently underestimated using all approaches, but are epidemiologically relevant. This work highlights the importance of data availability and strengthening collaboration among different institutions with access to critical data - models are only as good as the data that they use, so building towards effective data-sharing pipelines is essential.

scholarly journals Forecasting the spatial transmission of influenza in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (11) ◽  
pp. 2752-2757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sen Pei ◽  
Sasikiran Kandula ◽  
Wan Yang ◽  
Jeffrey Shaman
Keyword(s):  
Human Mobility ◽  
State Level ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Influenza Outbreak ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
Real Time Information ◽  
Time Information ◽  
Spatial Transmission

Recurrent outbreaks of seasonal and pandemic influenza create a need for forecasts of the geographic spread of this pathogen. Although it is well established that the spatial progression of infection is largely attributable to human mobility, difficulty obtaining real-time information on human movement has limited its incorporation into existing infectious disease forecasting techniques. In this study, we develop and validate an ensemble forecast system for predicting the spatiotemporal spread of influenza that uses readily accessible human mobility data and a metapopulation model. In retrospective state-level forecasts for 35 US states, the system accurately predicts local influenza outbreak onset,—i.e., spatial spread, defined as the week that local incidence increases above a baseline threshold—up to 6 wk in advance of this event. In addition, the metapopulation prediction system forecasts influenza outbreak onset, peak timing, and peak intensity more accurately than isolated location-specific forecasts. The proposed framework could be applied to emergent respiratory viruses and, with appropriate modifications, other infectious diseases.

scholarly journals Incorporating human mobility data improves forecasts of Dengue fever in Thailand

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew V. Kiang ◽  
Mauricio Santillana ◽  
Jarvis T. Chen ◽  
Jukka-Pekka Onnela ◽  
Nancy Krieger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Dengue Fever ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Epidemiological Data ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Mobile Phone Data ◽  
Effective Vaccine ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Mobility Data

AbstractOver 390 million people worldwide are infected with dengue fever each year. In the absence of an effective vaccine for general use, national control programs must rely on hospital readiness and targeted vector control to prepare for epidemics, so accurate forecasting remains an important goal. Many dengue forecasting approaches have used environmental data linked to mosquito ecology to predict when epidemics will occur, but these have had mixed results. Conversely, human mobility, an important driver in the spatial spread of infection, is often ignored. Here we compare time-series forecasts of dengue fever in Thailand, integrating epidemiological data with mobility models generated from mobile phone data. We show that geographically-distant provinces strongly connected by human travel have more highly correlated dengue incidence than weakly connected provinces of the same distance, and that incorporating mobility data improves traditional time-series forecasting approaches. Notably, no single model or class of model always outperformed others. We propose an adaptive, mosaic forecasting approach for early warning systems.

scholarly journals Variation in human mobility and its impact on the risk of future COVID-19 outbreaks in Taiwan

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng-Chun Chang ◽  
Rebecca Kahn ◽  
Yu-An Li ◽  
Cheng-Sheng Lee ◽  
Caroline O. Buckee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Spatial Spread ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Intercity Travel ◽  
Travel Restrictions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, understanding how patterns of human mobility and connectivity affect outbreak dynamics, especially before outbreaks establish locally, is critical for informing response efforts. In Taiwan, most cases to date were imported or linked to imported cases. Methods In collaboration with Facebook Data for Good, we characterized changes in movement patterns in Taiwan since February 2020, and built metapopulation models that incorporate human movement data to identify the high risk areas of disease spread and assess the potential effects of local travel restrictions in Taiwan. Results We found that mobility changed with the number of local cases in Taiwan in the past few months. For each city, we identified the most highly connected areas that may serve as sources of importation during an outbreak. We showed that the risk of an outbreak in Taiwan is enhanced if initial infections occur around holidays. Intracity travel reductions have a higher impact on the risk of an outbreak than intercity travel reductions, while intercity travel reductions can narrow the scope of the outbreak and help target resources. The timing, duration, and level of travel reduction together determine the impact of travel reductions on the number of infections, and multiple combinations of these can result in similar impact. Conclusions To prepare for the potential spread within Taiwan, we utilized Facebook’s aggregated and anonymized movement and colocation data to identify cities with higher risk of infection and regional importation. We developed an interactive application that allows users to vary inputs and assumptions and shows the spatial spread of the disease and the impact of intercity and intracity travel reduction under different initial conditions. Our results can be used readily if local transmission occurs in Taiwan after relaxation of border control, providing important insights into future disease surveillance and policies for travel restrictions.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Geolocation Information through Mobile-Devices under Different COVID-19 Mobility Restriction Patterns in Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Raquel Pérez-Arnal ◽  
David Conesa ◽  
Sergio Alvarez-Napagao ◽  
Toyotaro Suzumura ◽  
Martí Català ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
The Other ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Mobile Data ◽  
Restriction Patterns ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Proper Interpretation

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the world in unprecedented and unpredictable ways. Human mobility, being the greatest facilitator for the spread of the virus, is at the epicenter of this change. In order to study mobility under COVID-19, to evaluate the efficiency of mobility restriction policies, and to facilitate a better response to future crisis, we need to understand all possible mobility data sources at our disposal. Our work studies private mobility sources, gathered from mobile-phones and released by large technological companies. These data are of special interest because, unlike most public sources, it is focused on individuals rather than on transportation means. Furthermore, the sample of society they cover is large and representative. On the other hand, these data are not directly accessible for anonymity reasons. Thus, properly interpreting its patterns demands caution. Aware of that, we explore the behavior and inter-relations of private sources of mobility data in the context of Spain. This country represents a good experimental setting due to both its large and fast pandemic peak and its implementation of a sustained, generalized lockdown. Our work illustrates how a direct and naive comparison between sources can be misleading, as certain days (e.g., Sundays) exhibit a directly adverse behavior. After understanding their particularities, we find them to be partially correlated and, what is more important, complementary under a proper interpretation. Finally, we confirm that mobile-data can be used to evaluate the efficiency of implemented policies, detect changes in mobility trends, and provide insights into what new normality means in Spain.

scholarly journals Modelling Representative Population Mobility for COVID-19 Spatial Transmission in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Potgieter ◽  
I. N. Fabris-Rotelli ◽  
Z. Kimmie ◽  
N. Dudeni-Tlhone ◽  
J. P. Holloway ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Mobility ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Population Mobility ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatial Weight ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Reduced Mobility ◽  
Spatial Transmission

The COVID-19 pandemic starting in the first half of 2020 has changed the lives of everyone across the world. Reduced mobility was essential due to it being the largest impact possible against the spread of the little understood SARS-CoV-2 virus. To understand the spread, a comprehension of human mobility patterns is needed. The use of mobility data in modelling is thus essential to capture the intrinsic spread through the population. It is necessary to determine to what extent mobility data sources convey the same message of mobility within a region. This paper compares different mobility data sources by constructing spatial weight matrices at a variety of spatial resolutions and further compares the results through hierarchical clustering. We consider four methods for constructing spatial weight matrices representing mobility between spatial units, taking into account distance between spatial units as well as spatial covariates. This provides insight for the user into which data provides what type of information and in what situations a particular data source is most useful.

scholarly journals Estimating infection-related human mobility networks based on time series data of COVID-19 infection in Japan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuya Yamada ◽  
Shoi Shi
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Data Infrastructure

Comprehensive and evidence-based countermeasures against emerging infectious diseases have become increasingly important in recent years. COVID-19 and many other infectious diseases are spread by human movement and contact, but complex transportation networks in 21 century make it difficult to predict disease spread in rapidly changing situations. It is especially challenging to estimate the network of infection transmission in the countries that the traffic and human movement data infrastructure is not yet developed. In this study, we devised a method to estimate the network of transmission of COVID-19 from the time series data of its infection and applied it to determine its spread across areas in Japan. We incorporated the effects of soft lockdowns, such as the declaration of a state of emergency, and changes in the infection network due to government-sponsored travel promotion, and predicted the spread of infection using the Tokyo Olympics as a model. The models used in this study are available online, and our data-driven infection network models are scalable, whether it be at the level of a city, town, country, or continent, and applicable anywhere in the world, as long as the time-series data of infections per region is available. These estimations of effective distance and the depiction of infectious disease networks based on actual infection data are expected to be useful in devising data-driven countermeasures against emerging infectious diseases worldwide.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document