Characteristics of human encounters and social mixing patterns relevant to infectious diseases spread by close contact: a survey in Southwest Uganda

Abstract Background Quantification of human interactions relevant to infectious disease transmission through social contact is central to predict disease dynamics, yet data from low-resource settings remain scarce. Methods We undertook a social contact survey in rural Uganda, whereby participants were asked to recall details about the frequency, type, and socio-demographic characteristics of any conversational encounter that lasted for ≥5 min (henceforth defined as ‘contacts’) during the previous day. An estimate of the number of ‘casual contacts’ (i.e.