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The Role of Subway Travel in an Influenza Epidemic: A New York City Simulation

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Abstract

The interactions of people using public transportation in large metropolitan areas may help spread an influenza epidemic. An agent-based model computer simulation of New York City’s (NYC’s) five boroughs was developed that incorporated subway ridership into a Susceptible–Exposed–Infected–Recovered disease model framework. The model contains a total of 7,847,465 virtual people. Each person resides in one of the five boroughs of NYC and has a set of socio-demographic characteristics and daily behaviors that include age, sex, employment status, income, occupation, and household location and membership. The model simulates the interactions of subway riders with their workplaces, schools, households, and community activities. It was calibrated using historical data from the 1957–1958 influenza pandemics and from NYC travel surveys. The surveys were necessary to enable inclusion of subway riders into the model. The model results estimate that if influenza did occur in NYC with the characteristics of the 1957–1958 pandemic, 4% of transmissions would occur on the subway. This suggests that interventions targeted at subway riders would be relatively ineffective in containing the epidemic. A number of hypothetical examples demonstrate this feature. This information could prove useful to public health officials planning responses to epidemics.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the following grants from the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS), RTI-U01-GM070698, and the University of Pittsburgh, 1U54GM088491-0109. The authors also wish to acknowledge and thank the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In particular, the paper benefitted from extensive discussions with Dr. Bonnie Kerker, Assistant Commissioner New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. We also wish to thank Farzad Mostashari, Senior Advisor, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for his participation in the discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, P.O. Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709, USA

    Philip Cooley, James Cajka, Bernadette Chasteen, Laxminarayana Ganapathi, Craig R. Hollingsworth, Burton Levine, William D. Wheaton & Diane K. Wagener

  2. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Shawn Brown, John Grefenstette & Bruce Y. Lee

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  1. Philip Cooley
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  2. Shawn Brown
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  3. James Cajka
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  4. Bernadette Chasteen
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  5. Laxminarayana Ganapathi
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  6. John Grefenstette
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  7. Craig R. Hollingsworth
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  8. Bruce Y. Lee
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  9. Burton Levine
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  10. William D. Wheaton
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  11. Diane K. Wagener
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip Cooley.

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Cooley, P., Brown, S., Cajka, J. et al. The Role of Subway Travel in an Influenza Epidemic: A New York City Simulation. J Urban Health 88, 982–995 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-011-9603-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-011-9603-4

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