Commuting Patterns and Infectious Disease Transmission

While modern medicine has reduced the frequency and severity of most common infectious diseases, increased human mobility has made it possible for these diseases to spread wider distances very rapidly. Carriers of infectious disease who travel significant distances from home are likely to spread the disease to others they come in contact with. Likewise, these secondary contacts are likely to travel some distance and then come into contact with others, potentially spreading the disease far from its origin. Without insight as to where these individuals are likely to travel officials are not likely to mount a very effective counter against further spread of the disease. In cases of highly contagious infective diseases that carry serious adverse health risks it is of the utmost importance that officials are able to determine where the carrier(s) of a disease travelled while infected, who they came into contact with, and where those contacts travelled, etc...

Recent research has shown that the majority of travel in the U.S. originates from either home or the workplace. U.S. Census data shows that more than 128 million Americans have jobs and 97% of those jobs are outside of the worker's residence meaning they commute to work multiple days every week. Some commutes are relatively short while others span large distances. While the majority of work commutes fall in the range of 15 to 29 minutes, nearly 27% are 30 - 59 minutes and another 8% are an hour or more. Studying the geographic commuting patterns of Americans gives researchers good insight into possible spread patterns of infectious diseases and allows for a prompt intervention from authorities to minimize affects of disease.

I'm still interested in researching commuting using past census data to compare and see if we are commuting farther to work today than in the past. I also want to talk to researchers who are involved in a national study on models of infectious disease aimed at improving national communication and response when it comes to infectious disease out brakes.