IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/safiwp/99-01-004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Geographic Spread of Influenza

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Bonabeau
  • Laurent Toubiana
  • Antoine Flahault

Abstract

How infectious diseases spread in space within one cycle of an epidemic is an important question that has received considerable theoretical attention. There are, however, few empirical studies to support theoretical approaches, because data is scarce. Weekly reports obtained since 1984 from a network of general practitioners spanning the entire French territory allows the analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of influenza over a fine spatial scale. This analysis indicates that diffusion over long distances, possibly due to global transportation systems, is so quick that homogeneous global mixing occurs before the epidemic builds up within infected patches. A simple model in which the total number of cases is given by the empirical time series and cases are randomly assigned to patches according to the population weight of the patches exhibits the same spatiotemporal properties as real epidemic cycles: homogeneous mixing models constitute appropriate descriptions, except in the vicinity of the epidemic's peak, where geographic heterogeneities play a role. To appear in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Bonabeau & Laurent Toubiana & Antoine Flahault, 1999. "The Geographic Spread of Influenza," Working Papers 99-01-004, Santa Fe Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:safiwp:99-01-004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric Bonabeau & Laurent Toubiana & Antoine Flahault, 1998. "Evidence for Global Mixing in Real Influenza Epidemics," Working Papers 98-07-061, Santa Fe Institute.
    2. Valleron, A.-J. & Bouvet, E. & Garnerin, P. & Ménarès, J. & Heard, I. & Letrait, S. & Lefaucheux, J., 1986. "A computer network for the surveillance of communicable diseases: The French experiment," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 76(11), pages 1289-1292.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      Influenza; geographic spread; global mixing;
      All these keywords.

      NEP fields

      This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      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:wop:safiwp:99-01-004. 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.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/epstfus.html .

      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.