Distinction and connection between contact network, social network, and disease transmission network

•Theoretical basis of contact, social, and disease transmission network.•Connection and distinction between three types of networks.•Real-world example to demonstrate the connection and distinction.

In this paper we discuss the distinction and connection between three closely related networks in animal ecology and epidemiology studies: the contact, social, and disease transmission networks. We provide a robust theoretical definition and interpretation of these three networks, demonstrate that social and disease transmission networks can be derived as spanning subgraphs of contact network, and show examples based on real-world high-resolution cattle contact structure data. Furthermore, we establish a modeling framework to track potential disease transmission dynamics and construct transmission network based on the observed animal contact network.