Estimating the Distribution of a Renewal Process from Times at which Events from an Independent Process Are Detected
| Autor: | Ruiguang Song, Edward White, Gary Goldbaum, John M. Karon |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2006 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Statistics and Probability Biometry Time Factors HIV Infections Window period Interval (mathematics) Sensitivity and Specificity General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Statistics Econometrics Humans Truncation (statistics) Renewal theory Time point Event (probability theory) Mathematics Models Statistical General Immunology and Microbiology Applied Mathematics AIDS Serodiagnosis Estimator General Medicine Data Interpretation Statistical General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Test data |
| Zdroj: | Biometrics. 62:838-846 |
| ISSN: | 0006-341X |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1541-0420.2006.00536.x |
| Popis: | The analysis of length-biased data has been mostly limited to the interarrival interval of a renewal process covering a specific time point. Motivated by a surveillance problem, we consider a more general situation where this time point is random and related to a specific event, for example, status change or onset of a disease. We also consider the problem when additional information is available on whether the event intervals (interarrival intervals covering the random event) end within or after a random time period (which we call a window period) following the random event. Under the assumptions that the occurrence rate of the random event is low and the renewal process is independent of the random event, we provide formulae for the estimation of the distribution of interarrival times based on the observed event intervals. Procedures for testing the required assumptions are also furnished. We apply our results to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) test data from public test sites in Seattle, Washington, where the random event is HIV infection and the window period is from the onset of HIV infection to the time at which a less sensitive HIV test becomes positive. Results show that the estimator of the intertest interval length distribution from event intervals ending within the window period is less biased than the estimator from all event intervals; the latter estimator is affected by right truncation. Finally, we discuss possible applications to estimating HIV incidence and analyzing length-biased samples with right or left truncated data. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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