Clustering of contacts relevant to the spread of infectious disease

Infectious disease spread depends on contact rates between infectious and susceptible individuals. Transmission models are commonly informed using empirically collected contact data, but the relevance of different contact types to transmission is still not well understood. Some studies select contacts based on a single characteristic such as proximity (physical/non-physical), location, duration or frequency. This study aimed to explore whether clusters of contacts similar to each other across multiple characteristics could better explain disease transmission.