ArticleEpidemiology and infection2020
Risk factors associated with outbreaks of seasonal infectious disease in school settings, England, UK.
Article in Epidemiology and infection, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Risk factors for school-based presenteeism in children: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Better data for better public health decision-making: perspectives on quantifying the intended and unintended impacts of public service modifications.BMC global and public health · 2026Review
- Profile of bacterial meningitis pathogens circulating in a cohort of school children in Côte d'Ivoire using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Epidemiology of Parvovirus B19 in Türkiye: A Descriptive Analysis of National Surveillance Data (2020-2024).Balkan medical journal · 2025Article
- Epidemiological characteristics of infectious disease outbreaks in schools in Zhejiang province, China, from 2013 to 2021.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Trends in the Use of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic, February 2021 to December 2023: A Mixed Methods Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Effects of Allergen Exposure and Environmental Risk Factors in Schools on Childhood Asthma.Current allergy and asthma reports · 2023Review
- School-based interventions on Mpox: A scoping review.Health science reports · 2023Article
- Genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in a university outbreak setting and implications for public health planning.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Head Lice Infestation in Schoolchildren, in Poland-Is There a Chance for Change?Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Developing a sentinel syndromic surveillance system using school-absenteeism data, example monitoring absences over the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.Epidemiology and infection · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Children are important transmitters of infection. Within schools they encounter large numbers of contacts and infections can spread easily causing outbreaks. However, not all schools are affected equally. We conducted a retrospective analysis of school outbreaks to identify factors associated with the risk of gastroenteritis, influenza, rash or other outbreaks. Data on reported school outbreaks in England were obtained from Public Health England and linked with data from the Department for Education and the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted). Primary and all-through schools were found to be at increased risk of outbreaks, compared with secondary schools (odds ratio (OR) 5.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.50-7.58 and OR 4.66, 95% CI 3.27-6.61, respectively). School size was also significantly associated with the risk of outbreaks, with higher odds associated with larger schools. Attack rates were higher in gastroenteritis and influenza outbreaks, with lower attack rates associated with rashes (relative risk 0.17, 95% CI 0.15-0.20). Deprivation and Ofsted rating were not associated with either outbreak occurrence or the subsequent attack rate. This study identifies primary and all-through schools as key settings for health protection interventions. Public health teams need to work closely with these schools to encourage early identification and reporting of outbreaks.
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