Reducing the Impact of the Next Influenza Pandemic Using Household-Based Public Health Interventions

This scientific study, published in the international medical journal PloS Medicine, was conducted to estimate the effectiveness of specific preventative measures that communities might implement to reduce the impact of pandemic influenza.

The researchers developed a mathematical model to simulate the course of pandemic influenza in a hypothetical population. The model was used to calculate the effects of interventions including voluntary household quarantine, voluntary individual isolation outside the home, and contact tracing (where individuals identify people whom they may have infected and those people are then warned) on the spread of the disease through the population.

The study suggests that the number of infected individuals and deaths from influenza during the first year of a pandemic could be substantially reduced by a combination of public health interventions, including voluntary household-based quarantine and isolation of actively infected individuals in a location outside of the household. The authors predicted that this reduction would be the case even if only half of the population complied with such measures.

In the event of an actual pandemic, the authors suggest that the model can be used to help to inform pandemic preparedness plans.