Saatmisandmed

Saatmisandmed is a term used in epidemiology to refer to data describing how an infectious agent is transmitted between individuals. These data cover information about transmission routes, close-contact patterns, and the timing of transmission events. Saatmisandmed aim to illuminate who infects whom, how quickly a pathogen spreads, and the conditions that facilitate transmission.

Data types include qualitative findings on routes and contexts, as well as quantitative measures such as secondary attack rate, reproduction number, generation time, serial interval, duration of infectiousness, and viral load dynamics. They are collected through case interviews, contact tracing records, surveillance databases, genomic epidemiology, and outbreak investigations. Modelling often combines saatmisandmed with demographic and behavioural data to estimate transmission parameters and assess the impact of interventions.

Applications of saatmisandmed include informing risk assessment, guiding public health measures (such as masking, ventilation improvements, isolation policies, and vaccination strategies), and forecasting outbreaks. Limitations arise from incomplete reporting, recall bias in interviews, privacy constraints, and heterogeneity in transmission across different settings and populations.

Ethical considerations are central to the collection and use of saatmisandmed. Data handling requires appropriate consent where applicable, anonymisation or de-identification, and secure storage. Saatmisandmed complement other epidemiological data but should be interpreted with caution due to variability in detection, reporting systems, and context-specific factors.