Table 2.
Median pairwise bacterial community diversity, within and between categories.
| Characteristic | Categories, Value (N) |
Median [Q1, Q3] of pairwise beta diversitya |
pe | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Within the same category | Between categories | ||||
| N. meningitidis culture | Negative (83) | Positive (75) | 1.320 [1.200, 1.499] | 1.326 [1.203, 1.509] | 0.08 |
| Social mixing per weekb | <1 (65) | ≥1 (93) | 1.326 [1.202, 1.515] | 1.320 [1.201, 1.496] | 0.93 |
| Gender | Male (77) | Female (81) | 1.319 [1.198, 1.500] | 1.328 [1.205, 1.509] | 0.02 |
| Smokerc | No (87) | Yes (71) | 1.318 [1.200, 1.501] | 1.328 [1.204, 1.508] | 0.05 |
| URT infectiond | No (119) | Yes (39) | 1.326 [1.200, 1.512] | 1.319 [1.204, 1.492] | 0.91 |
| Study round | Sep 2015 (78) | Mar 2016 (80) | 1.323 [1.202, 1.506] | 1.323 [1.201, 1.505] | 0.55 |
aEffective number of communities based on Shannon entropy was measured for all 12,403 possible pairs of 158 swabs, with each pair assigned to “within” or “between” category depending on whether the two swabs were from the same or different category. The first and third quartiles are noted in brackets.
bNumber of visits to bars, clubs, or parties per week.
cSmoking in the past 30 days.
dSymptoms of URT infection in past 2 weeks.
eMann-Whitney U one-tailed p-value; a value < 0.0083 is required attain a Bonferroni-corrected significance of 0.05.