Spending time with grandkids offers many health benefits, like keeping us socially connected, physically active, and cognitively sharp. But, according to new research, being around grandchildren has its risks, too.
The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus, is a common and contagious microorganism responsible for a range of mild and severe infections, including pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. Pneumococcal infections mainly affect young children and the elderly, claiming almost two million lives every year.
These bacteria commonly inhabit our respiratory tract and are, in most cases, asymptomatic. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 5 to 10 percent of adults are thought to be asymptomatic carriers of these microbes. However, in children, this number rises to between 20 and 60 percent.
To explore the transmission of these bacteria, a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health recruited a total of 183 adults with an average age of 70 from 83 households between 2020 and 2022. The researchers collected saliva samples and questionnaires about the social behaviors and health of each of the participants every two weeks over a 10-week period. These samples were then tested for the presence of pneumococcal bacteria.
Their analysis, which will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona, Spain, at the end of April, found that 28 of the 183 individuals had been positive for pneumococcus on at least one of these sampling visits, with several individuals testing positive on multiple occasions.
What interested the researchers was that older adults who had contact with young children daily or every few days were six times more likely to carry the bacteria in at least one of their samples during the study period compared to those who had no contact with children. This was highest among those who had reported contact with children under the age of five.
In total, recent contact with children under the age of 10 was associated with a three times increase in the acquisition rate of these bacteria compared to those who had no contact with children.
Meanwhile, there did not appear to be any statistically significant evidence for transmission of the bacteria between adults within the same household.
"Our study found no clear evidence of adult-to-adult transmission even though there were households in which an individual was positive for pneumococcus across numerous sampling moments, and instances where both adults in the household carried pneumococcus around the same time," Anne Wyllie, a research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health and lead researcher on the study, said in a statement.
"Instead, we found that transmission was highest among older adults who had frequent contact with young children."
More work will be needed to confirm these transmission patterns as the study was based on a fairly small community study in one region of the U.S. with a majority White population. However, the researchers hope that their findings will help inform vaccination strategies to protect older adults from pneumococcal infections.
"[Our results] suggest that the main benefit of adult pneumococcal vaccination is to directly protect older adults who are exposed to children who may still carry and transmit some vaccine-type pneumococcal strains," Wyllie said.
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