Enteric and Respiratory Virus Transmission Dynamics and Prevention Strategies in Home, Community, Healthcare, and Travel Settings

Enteric and respiratory viruses impose substantial public health and economic burdens worldwide. Transmission involves multiple interconnected pathways, including direct person-to-person contact, inhalation of infectious aerosols, exposure to contaminated surfaces, and ingestion of contaminated food or water. Evidence suggests that air and environmental surfaces within the built environment function as components of a dynamic transmission network, with pathogens continuously transferring between air, surfaces, hands, food-contact areas, and water systems. Aerosols generated through breathing, coughing, vomiting, toilet flushing, and routine human activities may deposit onto surfaces, while contaminated surfaces can subsequently contribute to indirect transmission, secondary reaerosolization/resuspension, or fomite-mediated networks. Understanding these pathways at the population level is essential for designing prevention strategies that reduce infection incidence and inform public health decision-making, particularly since non-pharmaceutical interventions targeting only a single transmission pathway may leave important routes of exposure unaddressed.This Research Topic aims to advance epidemiological understanding of the complex transmission dynamics of enteric and respiratory viruses within the built environment and to identify effective, evidence-based strategies for reducing infection risks across home, community, healthcare, and travel settings. We welcome contributions examining the relative roles and interactions of airborne, surface-mediated, foodborne, waterborne, and person-to-person transmission pathways, as well as the environmental, behavioral, and operational factors that influence pathogen spread and population-level infection risk. Particular emphasis will be placed on studies investigating air-surface interactions, environmental persistence, exposure-risk assessment, quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), outbreak modeling, and environmental surveillance as tools for population-level risk estimation and public health response. We also encourage research evaluating the effectiveness, uptake, cost-effectiveness, or implementation of environmental controls (ventilation, filtration, UVGI, air sanitization, environmental cleaning, surface disinfection, hand hygiene, water hygiene, and food-safety interventions) against measured public health outcomes, along with studies of human behavior, compliance, and optimal intervention timing.This Research Topic focuses on the exposure risk, transmission, intervention, and prevention of enteric and respiratory viral infections in the built environment, spanning homes, schools, childcare centers, workplaces, healthcare facilities, long-term care settings, public venues, transportation systems, cruise ships, and other communal environments. Topics of interest include:• Exposure assessment and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA)• Environmental and wastewater surveillance• Outbreak investigations and mathematical/transmission-dynamics modeling• Human behavior and targeted hygiene practices• Ventilation, filtration, UVGI, air sanitization, environmental cleaning, surface disinfection, hand hygiene, and food/water safety interventions, including their efficacy, compliance, and implementation• The microbiome and pathobiome of the built environment and its influence on pathogen persistence and infection riskWe welcome original research articles, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, perspectives, brief reports, methods papers, policy analyses, outbreak investigations, and case studies, provided authors clearly describe the public health significance of their findings. Submissions focused primarily on the mechanistic performance of engineering controls (e.g., HVAC/UVGI system design, disinfectant chemistry) without a population-level or public health outcome are better suited to Frontiers in Built Environment or Frontiers in Environmental Health. Topic editors: M. Khalid Ijaz, Raymond Nims Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83768/enteric-and-respiratory-virus-transmission-dynamics-and-prevention-strategies-in-home-community-healthcare-and-travel-settings