Estimating contact rates at a mass gathering by using video analysis: a proof-of-concept project

Details

• Alternative Title:
  BMC Public Health
• Personal Author:
  Rainey, Jeanette J ; Cheriyadat, Anil ; Radke, Richard J ; Crumly, Julie Suzuki ; Koch, Daniel B
• Description:
  Background ; Current approaches for estimating social mixing patterns and infectious disease transmission at mass gatherings have been limited by various constraints, including low participation rates for volunteer-based research projects and challenges in quantifying spatially and temporally accurate person-to-person interactions. We developed a proof-of-concept project to assess the use of automated video analysis for estimating contact rates of attendees of the GameFest 2013 event at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. ; Methods ; Video tracking and analysis algorithms were used to estimate the number and duration of contacts for 5 attendees during a 3-minute clip from the RPI video. Attendees were considered to have a contact event if the distance between them and another person was ≤1 meter. Contact duration was estimated in seconds. We also simulated 50 attendees assuming random mixing using a geo-spatially accurate representation of the same GameFest location. ; Results ; The 5 attendees had an overall median of 2 contact events during the 3-minute video clip (range: 0–6). Contact events varied from less than 5 seconds to the full duration of the 3-minute clip. The random mixing simulation was visualized and presented as a contrasting example. ; Conclusion ; We were able to estimate the number and duration of contacts for 5 GameFest attendees from a 3-minute video clip that can be compared to a random mixing simulation model at the same location. The next phase will involve scaling the system for simultaneous analysis of mixing patterns from hours-long videos and comparing our results with other approaches for collecting contact data from mass gathering attendees.
• Subjects:
  • Algorithms
  • Computer Simulation
  • Disease Transmission, Infectious
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Social Behavior
  • Video Recording
• Source:
  BMC Public Health. 14(1).
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Volume:
  14
• Issue:
  1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/25977/cdc_25977_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1010.83 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:c31822124036a0f0ca8e8fe682eb522d1087880a3bce87584c4c13e28a9fbf10