Social Environment and Influenza

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21732
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 58:Society medicine, nursing, and related fields
• Research Institution: Toho University
• Principal Investigator: Nishiwaki Yuji 東邦大学, 医学部, 教授 (40237764)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 道川 武紘 東邦大学, 医学部, 講師 (80594853)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-07-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: インフルエンザ / 社会環境要因 / 環境疫学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The objective was to evaluate the association between the social environment and influenza report count data by multiple regression analysis. The target area was the 30 areas under the jurisdiction of public health centers in Tokyo (excluding islands), and the number of influenza reports per fixed-point medical institution per year was used as the objective variable. The explanatory variables were the population, influenza vaccination coverage, welfare ratio, number of persons per household, ratio of incoming population to the permanent population, and ratio of outgoing population to the permanent population. The results showed that population inflows and outflows were not associated with the number of influenza reports, while they were associated with the number of persons per household. Instead of the number of persons per household, the association was also observed as the ratio of the number of households with children to the total number of households.

Free Research Field

環境疫学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

インフルエンザは、公衆衛生上重要な感染症であり、関連した呼吸器死亡は世界で年間に29万から65万人と推定されている。また、学級閉鎖、院内感染の問題や、出勤停止による労働生産性の低下も含めて、社会に及ぼす影響はきわめて大きい。しかしながら、その伝搬メカニズムについてはまだよくわからないことが多い。本研究により、インフルエンザの地域での流行には、人流よりも地域の世帯構成が寄与する可能性が示唆された。本結果は、東京都での結果であり、他地域でも同様の関連が観察されるかどうかの検証が必要である。