Abstract
Ignoring the limited precision of medical diagnostic tests can incur serious bias in prevalence estimation. Conversely, treating the values of sensitivity and specificity as constants, as in most studies, inevitably underestimates the variability of prevalence estimates. Bayesian inference provides a natural framework with which to integrate the variability in the estimates of sensitivity and specificity with estimation of prevalence. However, the resulting model becomes quite complicated and presents a computational challenge. Recently, Mendoza-Blanco et al. proposed a missing-data approach with simulation-based techniques to deal with the computational difficulties. Although their approach is quite effective in reducing the computational complexity into manageable tasks, their developed methodology is not general enough for modelling the effects of covariates in prevalence estimation. In this paper, we extend their work in this direction by combining their missing-data approach with a latent variable technique for modelling discrete data. The present work also generalizes the methods of Albert and Chib for Bayesian analysis of binary response data with errors in the response. We illustrate the methodology with several real data examples extracted from the literature.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.