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On modelling airborne infection risk

Drossinos Y, Stilianakis NI (2024)

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Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

Book Volume: 11

Article Number: 231976

Journal Issue: 7

DOI: 10.1098/rsos.231976

Abstract

Airborne infection risk analysis is usually performed for enclosed spaces where susceptible individuals are exposed to infectious airborne respiratory droplets by inhalation. It is usually based on exponential, dose-response models of which a widely used variant is the Wells-Riley (WR) model. We revisit this infection-risk estimate and extend it to the population level. We use an epidemiological model where the mode of pathogen transmission, airborne or contact, is explicitly considered. We illustrate the link between epidemiological models and the WR and the Gammaitoni and Nucci models. We argue that airborne infection quanta are, up to an overall density, airborne infectious respiratory droplets modified by a parameter that depends on biological properties of the pathogen, physical properties of the droplet and behavioural properties of the individual. We calculate the time-dependent risk of being infected for two scenarios. We show how the epidemic infection risk depends on the viral latent period and the event time, the time infection occurs. Infection risk follows the dynamics of the infected population. As the latent period decreases, infection risk increases. The longer a susceptible is present in the epidemic, the higher its risk of infection for equal exposure time to the pathogen is.

Involved external institutions

How to cite

APA:

Drossinos, Y., & Stilianakis, N.I. (2024). On modelling airborne infection risk. Royal Society Open Science, 11(7). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.231976

MLA:

Drossinos, Yannis, and Nikolaos I. Stilianakis. "On modelling airborne infection risk." Royal Society Open Science 11.7 (2024).

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