Can co-location be used as a proxy for face-to-face contacts?

• Published in: EPJ data science Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 11 - 18
• Main Authors: Génois, Mathieu, Barrat, Alain
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 08.05.2018; Springer Nature B.V; EDP Sciences; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Co-presence; Complex networks; Complexity; Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences; Computer Science; Condensed Matter; Data collection; Data-driven Science; Digital epidemiology; Epidemics; Face-to-face contacts; Interaktion; Modeling and Theory Building; Networks; Physics; Regular Article; Sampling; Sampling methods; Statistical Mechanics; Face-to-face contacts; Digital epidemiology; Co-presence; Complex networks; face-to-face contacts; complex networks; co-presence; digital epidemiology
• ISSN: 2193-1127; 2193-1127
• DOI: 10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0140-1

Technological advances have led to a strong increase in the number of data collection efforts aimed at measuring co-presence of individuals at different spatial resolutions. It is however unclear how much co-presence data can inform us on actual face-to-face contacts, of particular interest to study...