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What Heterogeneities in Individual-level Mobility Are Lost During Aggregation? Leveraging GPS Logger Data to Understand Fine-scale and Aggregated Patterns of Mobility

Human movement drives spatial transmission patterns of infectious diseases. Population-level mobility patterns are often quantified using aggregated data sets, such as census migration surveys or mobile phone data. These data are often unable to quantify individual-level travel patterns and lack the information needed to discern how mobility varies by demographic groups. Individual-level datasets can capture additional, more precise, aspects of mobility that may impact disease risk or transmission patterns and determine how mobility differs across cohorts; however, these data are rare, particularly in locations such as sub-Saharan Africa.

Citation:
Schaber KL, Kobayashi T, Hast M, ……. Lubinda J, Thuma PE, Lupiya J, et al for the Southern and Central Africa International Center for Excellence in Malaria Research. What Heterogeneities in Individual-level Mobility Are Lost During Aggregation? Leveraging GPS Logger Data to Understand Fine-scale and Aggregated Patterns of Mobility. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2022;107(5):1145-53.

Keywords:
Cell phones; communicable diseases; surveys; travel

Abstract:
Human movement drives spatial transmission patterns of infectious diseases. Population-level mobility patterns are often quantified using aggregated data sets, such as census migration surveys or mobile phone data. These data are often unable to quantify individual-level travel patterns and lack the information needed to discern how mobility varies by demographic groups. Individual-level datasets can capture additional, more precise, aspects of mobility that may impact disease risk or transmission patterns and determine how mobility differs across cohorts; however, these data are rare, particularly in locations such as sub-Saharan Africa.