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Estimation of the contact rate in a seasonal SEIR model: application to chickenpox incidence in France
Author(s) -
Deguen Séverine,
Thomas Guy,
Chau Nguyen Phong
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0258(20000515)19:9<1207::aid-sim423>3.0.co;2-l
Subject(s) - chickenpox , statistics , piecewise , demography , mathematics , medicine , immunology , mathematical analysis , virus , sociology
This work was an attempt at analysing the seasonal pattern of varicella epidemics in France by fitting a susceptibles–exposed–infectives–recovered (SEIR) model with a periodic contact rate function to weekly chickenpox incidence data collected over the period 1991 to 1996.The contact rate was assumed to be either a continuous, or a piecewise constant, periodic function. Both assumptions gave a reasonable fit to the data and yielded estimates of the incubation and infectious periods that were consistent with values derived on clinical or serological grounds. Seasonal fluctuation of the estimated contact rate function was likely to reflect the impact of school holidays on chickenpox diffusion among schoolchildren. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.