The Importance of Networks in Stopping Disease
Epidemiologists study the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. Often times, the public relies on them to contain outbreaks and provide medical advice. One of the most efficient ways of containing an outbreak is a method called contact tracing. Contact tracing works by finding everyone who had close contact with infected individuals and tracking them for 21 days. If any of the contacts are also infected by the disease, then those contacts must be isolated from the community. The process is then be repeated by tracking that contact’s contacts. Essentially, contact tracing creates a network where individuals are the nodes and the edges are when the individuals came in close contact with each other. The Strong Triadic Closure Property can help contact tracing because if one person has a very close connection with two people and often has close contact with both of them, then it is likely those two people have also come in contact with each other. These networks have been used to contain the spread of diseases.
Contact tracing has been used to control outbreaks such as SARS and smallpox. For the SARS outbreak in the early 2000’s, teams were sent to NYC to interview infected individuals and find all possible contacts. Those contacts were then called and advised on how to monitor their symptoms and receive treatment if necessary. The contacts were checked up on routinely. Because of the accurate network the teams built, they were able to successfully track the disease and control its spread. Currently, contact tracing is being used to control the outbreak of Ebola in Africa. However, the containment of Ebola is not as effective because the network being built is not as accurate and detailed. Many of the contacts do not have the correct contact information so the nodes of the network are not complete. Also, many of the people are uncooperative and do not share all the people they came in contact with, thus causing some of the edges of the network to be missing. With an incomplete network, the epidemiologists have even more obstacles to overcome. Networks provide crucial information for epidemiologists to stop the spread of diseases.
Links:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/11/health/ebola-contact-tracing/