Who's holding the baby? A prospective diary study of the contact patterns of mothers with an infant

Abstract

Background: Models of infectious disease are increasingly utilising empirical contact data to quantify the number of potentially infectious contacts between age groups. While a growing body of data is being collected on contact patterns across many populations, less attention has been paid to the social contacts of young infants. We collected information on the social contacts of primary carers of young infants and investigated their potential for use as a proxy for contacts made by their infant. Methods: We recruited primary carers of infants under one year of age residing in two geographically, demographically and socioeconomically distinct local government areas of Melbourne, Australia - ..