Immune landscapes and small scale influenza dynamics in southern China: The fluscape study

Models of infectious disease transmission predict that the population density and connectivity of communities should have a profound effect on the history of influenza exposure that members of those communities will have. Smaller, less connected communities are expected to be occasionally missed by a year's influenza epidemics, while larger, more connected communities should experience an epidemic every influenza season. Likewise, we would expect highly connected individuals and those living with them to experience more frequent influenza exposure than those with fewer social contacts. The Immune Landscapes of Influenza in Southern China (the Fluscape study) is a cohort study in and around Guangzhou, China aimed at exploring the dynamics of influenza infection across communities with highly varying population density and connectivity. This study compares the antibody profiles of individuals, households and communities across a spatial transect extending to the northeast of Guangzhou. These antibody profiles serve as a record of the past influenza exposure of study participants, though an imperfect one. In this talk I will present key findings from Fluscape so far, and put these in the context of their implications for understanding influenza dynamics on an individual, local and global scale. These findings include density driven variation in influenza incidence in communities at small spatial scales and distinct patterns of antibody response that accumulate over a lifetime of influenza exposure. They reveal a complex patterns of influenza immunity that may result in substantial variation in influenza risk between communities even within relatively small geographic regions.