Estimating the prevalence: Properties of the estimator regarding specificity and sensitivity of the underlying test

Jens Boysen-Hogrefe and Vincent Stamer

No 2152, Kiel Working Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)

Abstract: We provide a calculation tool to assess the properties of a maximumlikelihood (ML) estimator that extrapolates the true prevalence of an infectious disease from a random sample. The tools allow the researcher to correct for the specificity and sensitivity of the underlying medical test, calculate the standard deviation of the estimator and to plan the needed sample size. This document explains the underlying methods of the calculation tools and provides instructions for their proper use. We apply an adaption of the epidemiological SEIR-model to show that ML-estimators from random sampling tests provide a more realistic rate of infection than common approaches.

Keywords: Infectious diseases; random sampling; maximum-likelihood; SEIR-model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/215669/1/1693634694.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2152

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Kiel Working Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().