Figure 1. Daily time use and impact on disease transmission.

(A) Cumulative probability of being in different social settings (household, school, work, general community) at each time of the day (with time step 10 minutes) during work days for different age groups. We considered only time-use data collected from September 1 to May 31 to exclude potential effects of summer vacations. This is coherent with the timing of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in Italy, characterized by a single epidemic wave from September 2009 (with the reopening of schools after summer holidays) to January 2010. (B) Predicted average (lines) and 95%CI (colored areas) of the hourly percentage of daily transmission in different social contexts during work days. Results refer to infections occurring at day 48 of the simulated epidemics in a population of 100,000 individuals and with parameters as estimated for the 2009 influenza pandemic. (C) and (D) Same as (A) and (B), but for weekends. Differently from many other countries, most schools in Italy are open on Saturdays.