Introducing risk inequality metrics in tuberculosis policy development

M. Gabriela M. Gomes (), Juliane F. Oliveira, Adelmo Bertolde, Diepreye Ayabina, Tuan Anh Nguyen, Ethel L. Maciel, Raquel Duarte, Binh Hoa Nguyen, Priya B. Shete and Christian Lienhardt
Additional contact information
M. Gabriela M. Gomes: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Juliane F. Oliveira: Universidade do Porto
Adelmo Bertolde: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo
Diepreye Ayabina: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Tuan Anh Nguyen: National Lung Hospital
Ethel L. Maciel: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo
Raquel Duarte: Universidade do Porto
Binh Hoa Nguyen: National Lung Hospital
Priya B. Shete: University of California San Francisco
Christian Lienhardt: Global TB Programme, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Global stakeholders including the World Health Organization rely on predictive models for developing strategies and setting targets for tuberculosis care and control programs. Failure to account for variation in individual risk leads to substantial biases that impair data interpretation and policy decisions. Anticipated impediments to estimating heterogeneity for each parameter are discouraging despite considerable technical progress in recent years. Here we identify acquisition of infection as the single process where heterogeneity most fundamentally impacts model outputs, due to selection imposed by dynamic forces of infection. We introduce concrete metrics of risk inequality, demonstrate their utility in mathematical models, and pack the information into a risk inequality coefficient (RIC) which can be calculated and reported by national tuberculosis programs for use in policy development and modeling.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10447-y Abstract (text/html)

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:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10447-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10447-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().