Airports and the Spread of Disease

It's long been known that airports are key hubs for spreading diseases, not just because they represent rapid transport to other nations or regions, but also because the close confines and recycled air on aircraft is conducive to spreading infections. However, this article at Medical News Today discusses a study that attempted to predict the most "influential" airports in the U.S. for spreading diseases.

A conventional random flow model would show that the biggest airport hubs in terms of traffic volume would be the most influential spreaders of disease.

But the team, with their more realistic model, showed that is not the case.

Honolulu Airport: Less Traffic But Big Influence

A random diffusion model would look at Honolulu airport, which has only 30% of the air traffic of New York's Kennedy International Airport, and conclude half its travellers would go on to San Francisco and half to Anchorage, taking the disease to those airports, passing it onto other travellers, who then in turn pass it on in further random travel patterns.

But the new MIT model looks at Honolulu airport and predicts, despite it having 70% less traffic, that in terms of disease spread, it is nearly as influential as New York's Kennedy International Airport.

This is because Honolulu airport occupies a unique position in the air transportation network. It is located in the Pacific Ocean and is well connected to distant, large and well-connected hubs. So it comes third, ahead of San Francisco, in the list of 40 US airports in terms of contagion-spreading influence.

Of the 40 US airports the model examined in terms of influence on disease spread, it puts Kennedy Airport in first place, followed by airports in Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, Newark, Chicago (O'Hare) and Washington (Dulles).