ArticleBMC public health2022
Time trends in social contacts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: the CONNECT study.
Article in BMC public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Role-specific household contact patterns in urban and rural China: Implications for influenza household transmission.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2027Article
- The impact of public health and social measures on social contact patterns and transmission of COVID-19 in Hong Kong.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Social connection before and after the COVID-19 pandemic: results of the Belgian Health Interview Survey.BMC public health · 2026Article
- COVID-19 transmission dynamics: age-specific patterns and super spreaders in South Korea.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Individual and neighborhood based socioeconomic factors relevant for contact behaviour and epidemic control.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- The synergy of therapeutic vaccination and timely diagnosis for TB control in high-burden settings: Nunavut as a case study.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2025Article
- Evaluating COVID-19 vaccination policy in Québec (Canada) using a data-driven dynamic transmission model.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Social contact patterns in South Korea: an analysis of a survey conducted in 2023-2024.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Social Contact Patterns and Age Mixing before and during COVID-19 Pandemic, Greece, January 2020-October 2021.Emerging infectious diseases · 2025Article
- The Dual Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Social Support-A Population-Based Cohort Study Among Swedish Adults Across 23 Years.Psychiatric research and clinical practice · 2025Article
- Contact behaviour before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: evidence from contact surveys, 2016 to 2017 and 2020 to 2023.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2024Article
- Longitudinal social contact data analysis: insights from 2 years of data collection in Belgium during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2023Article
- How contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic are related to pre-pandemic contact patterns and mobility trends.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Design of effective outpatient sentinel surveillance for COVID-19 decision-making: a modeling study.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Dynamics of non-household contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 in the Netherlands.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Increase of invasive pneumococcal disease in children temporally associated with RSV outbreak in Quebec: a time-series analysis.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2023Article
- Relationship between Health Status and Daily Activities Based on Housing Type among Suburban Residents during COVID-19 Self-Isolation.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Evaluation of TB elimination strategies in Canadian Inuit populations: Nunavut as a case study.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2022Article
- Economic evaluation of COVID-19 rapid antigen screening programs in the workplace.BMC medicine · 2022Article
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination on COVID-19 outbreaks in Nunavut, Canada: a Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) study.BMC public health · 2022Article
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15 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundSince the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries, including Canada, have adopted unprecedented physical distancing measures such as closure of schools and non-essential businesses, and restrictions on gatherings and household visits. We described time trends in social contacts for the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods in Quebec, Canada.
methodsCONNECT is a population-based study of social contacts conducted shortly before (2018/2019) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020 - February 2021), using the same methodology for both periods. We recruited participants by random digit dialing and collected data by self-administered web-based questionnaires. Questionnaires documented socio-demographic characteristics and social contacts for two assigned days. A contact was defined as a two-way conversation at a distance ≤ 2 m or as a physical contact, irrespective of masking. We used weighted generalized linear models with a Poisson distribution and robust variance (taking possible overdispersion into account) to compare the mean number of social contacts over time and by socio-demographic characteristics.
resultsA total of 1291 and 5516 Quebecers completed the study before and during the pandemic, respectively. Contacts significantly decreased from a mean of 8 contacts/day prior to the pandemic to 3 contacts/day during the spring 2020 lockdown. Contacts remained lower than the pre-COVID period thereafter (lowest = 3 contacts/day during the Christmas 2020/2021 holidays, highest = 5 in September 2020). Contacts at work, during leisure activities/in other locations, and at home with visitors showed the greatest decreases since the beginning of the pandemic. All sociodemographic subgroups showed significant decreases of contacts since the beginning of the pandemic. The mixing matrices illustrated the impact of public health measures (e.g. school closure, gathering restrictions) with fewer contacts between children/teenagers and fewer contacts outside of the three main diagonals of contacts between same-age partners/siblings and between children and their parents.
conclusionPhysical distancing measures in Quebec significantly decreased social contacts, which most likely mitigated the spread of COVID-19.
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