Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3710
Publication type: Article in scientific journal
Type of review: Peer review (publication)
Title: Age difference between heterosexual partners in Britain : implications for the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis
Authors: Smid, Joost H.
Garcia, Victor
Low, Nicola
Mercer, Catherine H.
Althaus, Christian L.
DOI: 10.21256/zhaw-3710
10.1016/j.epidem.2018.03.004
Published in: Epidemics
Volume(Issue): 24
Page(s): 60
Pages to: 66
Issue Date: 31-Mar-2018
Publisher / Ed. Institution: Elsevier
ISSN: 1755-4365
1878-0067
Language: English
Subjects: Age disparity; Chlamydia trachomatis; Mathematical model; Sexual behaviour; Sexually transmitted diseases
Subject (DDC): 616: Internal medicine and diseases
Abstract: Heterosexual partners often differ in age. Integrating realistic patterns of sexual mixing by age into dynamic transmission models has been challenging. The effects of these patterns on the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STI) including Chlamydia trachomatis (chlamydia), the most common bacterial STI are not well understood. We describe age mixing between new heterosexual partners using age- and sex-specific data about sexual behavior reported by people aged 16-63 years in the 2000 and 2010 British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles. We incorporate mixing patterns into a compartmental transmission model fitted to age- and sex-specific, chlamydia positivity from the same surveys, to investigate C. trachomatis transmission. We show that distributions of ages of new sex partners reported by women and by men in Britain are not consistent with each other. After balancing these distributions, new heterosexual partnerships tend to involve men who are older than women (median age difference 2, IQR -1, 5 years). We identified the most likely age combinations of heterosexual partners where incident C. trachomatis infections are generated. The model results show that in >50% of chlamydia transmitting partnerships, at least one partner is ≥25 years old. This study illustrates how sexual behavior data can be used to reconstruct detailed sexual mixing patterns by age, and how these patterns can be integrated into dynamic transmission models. The proposed framework can be extended to study the effects of age-dependent transmission on incidence in any STI.
URI: https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/6310
Fulltext version: Published version
License (according to publishing contract): CC BY 4.0: Attribution 4.0 International
Departement: Life Sciences and Facility Management
Organisational Unit: Institute of Computational Life Sciences (ICLS)
Appears in collections:Publikationen Life Sciences und Facility Management

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Smid, J. H., Garcia, V., Low, N., Mercer, C. H., & Althaus, C. L. (2018). Age difference between heterosexual partners in Britain : implications for the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis. Epidemics, 24, 60–66. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3710
Smid, J.H. et al. (2018) ‘Age difference between heterosexual partners in Britain : implications for the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis’, Epidemics, 24, pp. 60–66. Available at: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3710.
J. H. Smid, V. Garcia, N. Low, C. H. Mercer, and C. L. Althaus, “Age difference between heterosexual partners in Britain : implications for the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis,” Epidemics, vol. 24, pp. 60–66, Mar. 2018, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-3710.
SMID, Joost H., Victor GARCIA, Nicola LOW, Catherine H. MERCER und Christian L. ALTHAUS, 2018. Age difference between heterosexual partners in Britain : implications for the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis. Epidemics. 31 März 2018. Bd. 24, S. 60–66. DOI 10.21256/zhaw-3710
Smid, Joost H., Victor Garcia, Nicola Low, Catherine H. Mercer, and Christian L. Althaus. 2018. “Age Difference between Heterosexual Partners in Britain : Implications for the Spread of Chlamydia Trachomatis.” Epidemics 24 (March): 60–66. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3710.
Smid, Joost H., et al. “Age Difference between Heterosexual Partners in Britain : Implications for the Spread of Chlamydia Trachomatis.” Epidemics, vol. 24, Mar. 2018, pp. 60–66, https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3710.


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