M. D. Broda, Petra Borovska, D. Kollenda, Marcel Linka, Naomi de Haas, Samuel de Haas, Benjamin de Haas
{"title":"Estimating the human bottleneck for contact tracing","authors":"M. D. Broda, Petra Borovska, D. Kollenda, Marcel Linka, Naomi de Haas, Samuel de Haas, Benjamin de Haas","doi":"10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae283","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the importance of contact tracing for epidemiological mitigation. Contact tracing interviews (CTIs) typically rely on episodic memory, which is prone to decline over time. Here, we provide a quantitative estimate of reporting decline for age- and gender-representative samples from the UK and Germany, emulating >15,000 CTIs. We find that the number of reported contacts declines as a power function of recall delay and is significantly higher for younger subjects and for those who used memory aids, such as a scheduler. We further find that these factors interact with delay: Older subjects and those who made no use of memory aids have steeper decline functions. These findings can inform epidemiological modelling and policies in the context of infectious diseases.","PeriodicalId":74468,"journal":{"name":"PNAS nexus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PNAS nexus","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae283","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the importance of contact tracing for epidemiological mitigation. Contact tracing interviews (CTIs) typically rely on episodic memory, which is prone to decline over time. Here, we provide a quantitative estimate of reporting decline for age- and gender-representative samples from the UK and Germany, emulating >15,000 CTIs. We find that the number of reported contacts declines as a power function of recall delay and is significantly higher for younger subjects and for those who used memory aids, such as a scheduler. We further find that these factors interact with delay: Older subjects and those who made no use of memory aids have steeper decline functions. These findings can inform epidemiological modelling and policies in the context of infectious diseases.