 Improvements in the estimation of the latent and infectious periods of a contagious diseaseNorman T. J. Bailey and Cynthia Alff-Steinberger Biometrika, 1970, vol. 57, issue 1, 141-153 Abstract: SummaryThe contagious disease model proposed by Bailey (1956a, b) predicts the frequency distribution of time intervals between the appearance of subsequent cases. Using data from households of two or three susceptibles into which a disease, measles, had been introduced, Bailey used a maximum likelihood procedure to determine various disease parameters, for example, length of the latent and infectious periods. In the original calculations, a desk calculator scoring procedure was used to maximize the likelihood. The present paper describes the application of a computer maximization technique to this problem. The computation is of course more rapid and the use of a computer permits the automatic determination of starting points for the computation, the calculation of goodness of fit X2 and facilitates variations of the model, such as the addition of an extra parameter to allow for the mis-classification of chains. The methods recommended are illustrated both by the previous measles data and by new data on infectious hepatitis. Date: 1970 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:biomet:v:57:y:1970:i:1:p:141-153. Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Biometrika is currently edited by Paul Fearnhead More articles in Biometrika from Biometrika Trust Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. |
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