{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"medRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T09:41:39Z","timestamp":1785404499704,"version":"3.56.0"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,26]]},"group-title":"Infectious Diseases (except HIV\/AIDS)","reference-count":0,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,26]],"date-time":"2026-05-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1779753600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"award":["This work was supported by award Number T32AG51108 from the National Institute of Aging (M.C.K), and by NIH R01 AI132606 (Y.H.G). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Aging, or the National Institutes of Health."],"award-info":[{"award-number":["This work was supported by award Number T32AG51108 from the National Institute of Aging (M.C.K), and by NIH R01 AI132606 (Y.H.G). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Aging, or the National Institutes of Health."]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01cwqze88","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,26]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>The dynamics of sexually transmitted infections involve interconnected transmission networks, including men who have sex with men and heterosexual populations. Understanding the extent of bridging between these networks can inform surveillance, guide interventions, and aid in the interpretation of their impact, but methods for quantifying bridging have been lacking. Here, we addressed whether pathogen genomics tools, successfully used to reconstruct transmission in other contexts, could accurately infer sexual network bridging. Based on simulations of gonorrhea spread, we evaluated phylodynamic bridging metrics inferred by ancestral state reconstruction under a range of sampling schemes, from comprehensive to sparse. These metrics differentiated sexual network structures even with biased sampling schemes, but accuracy depended on the sampling scheme and density: phylodynamic bridging estimates using sequences from all detected infections for one network configuration were on average 6.9% above the true value, whereas estimates from 5% of infections in symptomatic men with many partners were on average &gt;1000% above the true value. These results suggest routine overestimation of bridging from unadjusted inferences from genomics data and provide context for interpreting existing genomic surveillance data and targeted studies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.05.24.26353967","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,27]],"date-time":"2026-05-27T05:45:17Z","timestamp":1779860717000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Inferring Sexual Network Bridging Using Genomics: A Simulation Study"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1974-9276","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Madeleine C","family":"Kline","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health;"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"David","family":"Helekal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health;"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3468-2014","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kirstin I","family":"Oliveira Roster","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Harvard School of Public Health;"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5646-1314","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yonatan","family":"Grad","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"54368","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/syndication.highwire.org\/content\/doi\/10.64898\/2026.05.24.26353967","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,27]],"date-time":"2026-05-27T05:45:17Z","timestamp":1779860717000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/medrxiv.org\/lookup\/doi\/10.64898\/2026.05.24.26353967"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,26]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.64898\/2026.05.24.26353967","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,26]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}