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Estimation of Vaccine Efficacy in Non‐Randomly Mixing Populations
Author(s) -
Haber Michael,
Halloran M. Elizabeth,
Longini Ira M.,
Watelet Luc
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
biometrical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.108
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-4036
pISSN - 0323-3847
DOI - 10.1002/bimj.4710370103
Subject(s) - estimator , estimation , mixing (physics) , statistics , population , vaccination , transmission (telecommunications) , vaccine efficacy , mathematics , econometrics , medicine , computer science , immunology , environmental health , telecommunications , physics , management , quantum mechanics , economics
A deterministic model for the transmission of an acute infectious disease in a heterogeneous, nonrandomly mixing population is developed. This model facilitates the estimation of transmission probabilities from the observed attack rates. If some of the members of the population are vaccinated, then the vaccine efficacy (VE), defined as the relative reduction in the transmission probability due to vaccination, can be estimated. We provide several estimators of VE, depending on the amount of information available on the mixing pattern and on the action of the vaccine. We show that if vaccinated persons increase the frequency of their contacts with infectious persons, then estimators ignoring this change in behavior may substantially underestimate the VE.