Incubation Period of Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Abstract The incubation period of an infectious disease is the time interval between the exposure to a disease‐causing infectious agent and the onset of symptomatic (clinical) disease. The incubation period of a disease can be very variable among individuals and a single number, such as the mean or median incubation period, does not reveal the significant heterogeneity in incubation periods in a population. Estimating the distribution of incubation periods is important for a multitude of reasons including modeling the current and future scope of epidemics and evaluating disease control strategies. Important statistical issues arise in estimating incubation period distributions because of incomplete data and selection biases in epidemiological studies. Statistical methods for censored and truncated data are important for addressing those issues in the analyses of incubation periods. Syntheses of data from multiple studies of incubation periods can help overcome the limitations of any single study.