{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T07:48:36Z","timestamp":1792050516541,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792022400000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":287,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100018336","name":"National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["HPRU in Evaluation and Behavioural Science at the, Health Protection Research Focus Award in Vaccines"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HPRU in Evaluation and Behavioural Science at the, Health Protection Research Focus Award in Vaccines"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100018336","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000266","name":"Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["EP\/Y028392\/1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EP\/Y028392\/1"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000266","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Epidemiol. Infect."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Social contact surveys, measuring who contacts whom, are widely used for epidemic intelligence and public health decision-making. Despite their widespread use, sample size calculations are not performed. We conducted a review of social contact surveys (2008\u20132025) to characterize current practice. We characterized the impact of survey size on epidemic metrics using two social contact surveys, the UK Social Contact Survey and POLYMOD (Europe), and two methods. For each dataset and approach, we generated repeated subsamples and calculated the resulting reproduction numbers, characterized their distributions, and measured uncertainty. We identified 107 unique social contact surveys from 57 studies. Sample sizes ranged from 30 to more than 10\u00a0000 participants, with a median of 1\u00a0438. One quarter of surveys contained fewer than 1\u00a0000 participants. Our analysis supports recruiting at least 1\u00a0000 participants for general-population social contact surveys used for epidemic modelling. Increasing sample size to 2\u00a0000 participants provides worthwhile gains in the precision of epidemic estimates, particularly for analyses using finer age stratification or individual-level approaches. Beyond approximately 3\u00a0000 participants, additional improvements in precision were small for the epidemic metrics analysed. This provides a practical balance between precision and participant burden.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/s095026882610212x","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T06:58:36Z","timestamp":1792047516000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Sample size in social contact surveys for epidemic modelling and risk prediction"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"154","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5984-4932","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ellen","family":"Brooks-Pollock","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Bristol"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Leon","family":"Danon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Bristol"},{"name":"University of Bristol"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"S095026882610212X_r6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1186\/s12916-020-01597-8"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2012.0357"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2196\/jmir.3010"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.12688\/wellcomeopenres.23064.1"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pgph.0005463"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1002425"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pgph.0005188"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1186\/1471-2334-9-5"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-021-91156-9"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7554\/eLife.70294"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pmed.0050074"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r13","first-page":"23","article-title":"Longitudinal social contact data analysis: Insights from 2 years of data collection in Belgium during the COVID-19 pandemic","author":"Loedy","year":"2023","journal-title":"BMC Public Health"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.epidem.2022.100635"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2009.0386"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2020.0276"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-017-08241-1"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r14","volume-title":"Modern Epidemiology","author":"Rothman","year":"2008"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1005697"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S002217240006160X"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2013.1037"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r24","first-page":"2023-07","article-title":"The challenges of surveying heavy-tail distributions for use in infectious disease dynamics","author":"DeWitt","year":"2023","journal-title":"medRxiv"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0114925"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1097\/EDE.0000000000001047"},{"key":"S095026882610212X_r8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1009098"}],"container-title":["Epidemiology and Infection"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S095026882610212X","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T06:58:37Z","timestamp":1792047517000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S095026882610212X\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":24,"alternative-id":["S095026882610212X"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/s095026882610212x","relation":{},"ISSN":["0950-2688","1469-4409"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0950-2688","type":"print"},{"value":"1469-4409","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}],"article-number":"e131"}}