ArticleNature communications2021
Quantifying population contact patterns in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 93 papers.
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Who cites it
93 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mapping spatial colleague connectivity patterns from individual-level registry data to inform regional pandemic interventions.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- The impact of public health and social measures on social contact patterns and transmission of COVID-19 in Hong Kong.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- COVID-19 transmission dynamics: age-specific patterns and super spreaders in South Korea.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Characterizing social behavior relevant for tuberculosis transmission in four low- and middle-income countries.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Tuberculosis Outcomes in the United States: A Bayesian Analysis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2026Article
- Partisan differences in health behaviors can impact respiratory disease dynamics.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Estimating death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies using the network survival method.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Health beliefs and their relation to household, necessary, and unnecessary contacts across COVID-19 epidemic waves in Taiwan.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Improving policy design and epidemic response using integrated models of economic choice and disease dynamics with behavioral feedback.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Characterizing population-level changes in human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Characterising non-household contact patterns relevant to respiratory transmission in the USA: analysis of a cross-sectional survey.The Lancet. Digital health · 2025Article
- Impact of imported COVID-19 cases on South Korea's response: variant transitions and regional patterns (2020-2023).BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- The effect of COVID-19 vaccination on change in contact and implications for transmission.Epidemics · 2025Article
- Catching a wave: On the suitability of traveling-wave solutions in epidemiological modeling.Theoretical population biology · 2025Article
- How immunity shapes the long-term dynamics of influenza H3N2.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- A modeling study to define guidelines for antigen screening in schools and workplaces to mitigate COVID-19 outbreaks.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Amplification of the power of network hubs and degree skewness over infectious disease spread during lulls.PloS one · 2025Article
- Continuing to be cautious: Japanese contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic and their association with public health recommendations.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- A qualitative study exploring motivations for participating in research among women who use opioids.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
33 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily through close, person-to-person interactions. Physical distancing policies can control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by reducing the amount of these interactions in a population. Here, we report results from four waves of contact surveys designed to quantify the impact of these policies during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We surveyed 9,743 respondents between March 22 and September 26, 2020. We find that interpersonal contact has been dramatically reduced in the US, with an 82% (95%CI: 80%-83%) reduction in the average number of daily contacts observed during the first wave compared to pre-pandemic levels. However, we find increases in contact rates over the subsequent waves. We also find that certain demographic groups, including people under 45 and males, have significantly higher contact rates than the rest of the population. Tracking these changes can provide rapid assessments of the impact of physical distancing policies and help to identify at-risk populations.
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