The mixMI project: Estimating social contact patterns in the metropolitan city of Milan, Italy

by Alessia Melegaro, Nicoletta Balbo, Filippo Trentini and Adriana Manna in collaboration with Centro Medico Santagostino (Milano) and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Trento)

Social mixing plays a key role in shaping the spread of infectious diseases. The characterisation of individual’s contacts are proven to be strongly useful to inform epidemiological models aimed at investigating the transmission dynamics of infectious pathogens and to evaluate the impact of possible intervention measures.

We are conducting a cross sectional survey in the City of Milan aiming to characterize how individuals of different ages mix with each other in a metropolitan setting during the different phases of SARS-COV-2 pandemic. The collection of detailed information at the individual level will allow us to quantify age-specific contact rates and mixing preferences across different socio-demographic settings. These data will be used to investigate, through mathematical and simulation approaches, epidemiological patterns observed in Milan and, more generally the Italian setting, to better understand the transmission process underlying the spread of COVID19 and to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative containment measures for keeping the pandemic under control. Serological and swab data will also be available for all study participants.