Approximating the Reed-Frost epidemic process

A. D. Barbour and Sergey Utev

Stochastic Processes and their Applications, 2004, vol. 113, issue 2, 173-197

Abstract: The paper is concerned with refining two well-known approximations to the Reed-Frost epidemic process. The first is the branching process approximation in the early stages of the epidemic; we extend its range of validity, and sharpen the estimates of the error incurred. The second is the normal approximation to the distribution of the final size of a large epidemic, which we complement with a detailed local limit approximation. The latter, in particular, is relevant if the approximations are to be used for statistical inference.

Keywords: Reed-Frost; epidemic; process; Local; limit; approximation; Asymptotic; relative; closeness; Total; variation; Final; size; distribution; Branching; process; approximation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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