Area Disease Estimation Based on Sentinel Hospital Records

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 6; no. 8; p. e23428
• Main Authors: Wang, Jin-Feng, Reis, Ben Y., Hu, Mao-Gui, Christakos, George, Yang, Wei-Zhong, Sun, Qiao, Li, Zhong-Jie, Li, Xiao-Zhou, Lai, Sheng-Jie, Chen, Hong-Yan, Wang, Dao-Chen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 23.08.2011; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Analysis; Bias; Biology; Case studies; China - epidemiology; Clustering; Dengue fever; Disease control; Disease prevention; Epidemics; Epidemiologic Methods; Epidemiology; Error analysis; Errors; Estimates; Estimators; Feet; Fever; Fever - epidemiology; Geography; Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease - epidemiology; Health; Hospital Records - statistics & numerical data; Hospitals; Humans; Incidence; Information systems; Kriging interpolation; Mathematics; Medical laboratories; Medical records; Medical research; Medicine; Mixtures; Natural resources; Optimization; Population; Problem solving; Risk assessment; Sample size; Sentinel Surveillance; Shade; Spacetime; Statistical analysis; Statistical methods; Studies; Tropical diseases; Variance; White noise; China; Beijing China; New York; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; Taiwan

Population health attributes (such as disease incidence and prevalence) are often estimated using sentinel hospital records, which are subject to multiple sources of uncertainty. When applied to these health attributes, commonly used biased estimation techniques can lead to false conclusions and ine...