Prioritizing high-contact occupations raises effectiveness of vaccination campaigns

Hendrik Nunner; Arnout van de Rijt; Vincent Buskens

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-04428-9

Prioritizing high-contact occupations raises effectiveness of vaccination campaigns

Hendrik Nunner
, Arnout van de Rijt
, Vincent Buskens

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

A twenty-year-old idea from network science is that vaccination campaigns would be more effective if high-contact individuals were preferentially targeted. Implementation is impeded by the ethical and practical problem of differentiating vaccine access based on a personal characteristic that is hard-to-measure and private. Here, we propose the use of occupational category as a proxy for connectedness in a contact network. Using survey data on occupation-specific contact frequencies, we calibrate a model of disease propagation in populations undergoing varying vaccination campaigns. We find that vaccination campaigns that prioritize high-contact occupational groups achieve similar infection levels with half the number of vaccines, while also reducing and delaying peaks. The paper thus identifies a concrete, operational strategy for dramatically improving vaccination efficiency in ongoing pandemics.

Original language	English
Article number	737
Pages (from-to)	1-13
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04428-9
Publication status	Published - 14 Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by a 23k grant from the UU FSS COVID-19 fund to V.B. and A.v.d.R. H.N. acknowledges support from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw; Grant No. 91216062). There was no further involvement of the funding organizations regarding the study’s conceptualization, design, data collection/generation, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

COVID-19/prevention & control
Contact Tracing
Disease Transmission, Infectious/prevention & control
Humans
Immunization Programs/ethics
Occupational Health
Occupations
Pandemics/prevention & control
Vaccination

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10.1038/s41598-021-04428-9Licence: CC BY

s41598-021-04428-9Final published version, 2.51 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "A twenty-year-old idea from network science is that vaccination campaigns would be more effective if high-contact individuals were preferentially targeted. Implementation is impeded by the ethical and practical problem of differentiating vaccine access based on a personal characteristic that is hard-to-measure and private. Here, we propose the use of occupational category as a proxy for connectedness in a contact network. Using survey data on occupation-specific contact frequencies, we calibrate a model of disease propagation in populations undergoing varying vaccination campaigns. We find that vaccination campaigns that prioritize high-contact occupational groups achieve similar infection levels with half the number of vaccines, while also reducing and delaying peaks. The paper thus identifies a concrete, operational strategy for dramatically improving vaccination efficiency in ongoing pandemics.",

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note = "Funding Information: This research was supported in part by a 23k grant from the UU FSS COVID-19 fund to V.B. and A.v.d.R. H.N. acknowledges support from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw; Grant No. 91216062). There was no further involvement of the funding organizations regarding the study{\textquoteright}s conceptualization, design, data collection/generation, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

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Prioritizing high-contact occupations raises effectiveness of vaccination campaigns

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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