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ANALYSIS OF VARIATIONS IN AN INFECTION RATE
Author(s) -
Becker Niels,
Yip Paul
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
australian journal of statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.434
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-842X
pISSN - 0004-9581
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-842x.1989.tb00497.x
Subject(s) - infection rate , constant (computer programming) , statistics , function (biology) , nonparametric statistics , mixing (physics) , mathematics , estimation , variation (astronomy) , econometrics , biology , medicine , computer science , evolutionary biology , surgery , economics , physics , astrophysics , management , quantum mechanics , programming language
summary In a previous analysis of data from a smallpox epidemic in Abakaliki, Nigeria, it was found that the epidemic model based on uniform mixing was able to give an adequate description only when the infection rate was taken to be a function of time. Here we demonstrate that an alternative, and plausible, explanation is that the infection rate acting upon each given susceptible is constant over time, but that it varies between susceptibles. This variation in susceptibility of individuals can give the impression that the infection rate is declining over time, because highly susceptible individuals tend to be infected earlier so that the mean susceptibility of the remaining susceptibles is declining over time. The above example reveals that there is interest in exploring the nature of the dependence of the infection rate upon time. To this end we propose the nonparametric estimation of the infection rate and illustrate it with reference to the Abakaliki data.