TY - JOUR
T1 - The analysis of delays in disease reporting
T2 - Methods and results for the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
AU - Brookmeyer, Ron
AU - Liao, Jiangang
N1 - Funding Information:
Received for publication August 28, 1989, and in ment of Biostatistics, The Johns Hopkins University, final form March 7, 1990. 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205. Abbreviations: AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency This work was partially supported by the Public syndrome; CI, confidence interval; GLIM, Generalized Health Service Grant CA-48723 from the National Linear Interactive Modeling; HIV, human immuno-Cancer Institute, deficiency virus. The authors are grateful to Dr. Tim Green and Dr. From the Department of Biostatistics, The Johns John Karon of the Centers for Disease Control for Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public many helpful comments, and to Dr. W. Y. Tsai of Health, Baltimore, MD. Columbia University for pointing out the closed form Reprint requests to Dr. Ron Brookmeyer, Depart-solution of the Poisson regression approach. 355
PY - 1990/8
Y1 - 1990/8
N2 - In order to monitor accurately trends in disease incidence, it is necessary to account for delays in the reporting of cases to central registries. The objective of the paper is to develop simple methods for the analysis of reporting delays in order to identify the main sources of heterogeneity and to adjust reported disease incidence data. The analysis Is complicated because the data are right truncated. A simple and flexible method for the regression analysis of reporting delays is proposed, which can be easily Implemented with standard computing tools for generalized linear models or logistic regression. The method was used to analyze delays in reporting the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the United States among cases who met the pre-1987 surveillance definition. This analysis showed significant geographic variation. Delays were shortest in the Northeast and longest in the South. The influences of risk groups and calendar year of diagnosis were not consistent across each of the geographic regions. Variation among risk groups was attributed primarily to slower reporting of transfusion-associated and pediatric acquired immunodeficiency syndrome cases. An overall trend toward longer delays with calendar time of diagnosis was attributed primarily to a trend toward longer delays in the Northeast These methods and results are useful both for the evaluation of surveillance procedures in order to improve disease reporting and for adjustment of disease incidence data.
AB - In order to monitor accurately trends in disease incidence, it is necessary to account for delays in the reporting of cases to central registries. The objective of the paper is to develop simple methods for the analysis of reporting delays in order to identify the main sources of heterogeneity and to adjust reported disease incidence data. The analysis Is complicated because the data are right truncated. A simple and flexible method for the regression analysis of reporting delays is proposed, which can be easily Implemented with standard computing tools for generalized linear models or logistic regression. The method was used to analyze delays in reporting the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the United States among cases who met the pre-1987 surveillance definition. This analysis showed significant geographic variation. Delays were shortest in the Northeast and longest in the South. The influences of risk groups and calendar year of diagnosis were not consistent across each of the geographic regions. Variation among risk groups was attributed primarily to slower reporting of transfusion-associated and pediatric acquired immunodeficiency syndrome cases. An overall trend toward longer delays with calendar time of diagnosis was attributed primarily to a trend toward longer delays in the Northeast These methods and results are useful both for the evaluation of surveillance procedures in order to improve disease reporting and for adjustment of disease incidence data.
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U2 - 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115665
DO - 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115665
M3 - Article
C2 - 2372012
AN - SCOPUS:0025288877
SN - 0002-9262
VL - 132
SP - 355
EP - 365
JO - American journal of epidemiology
JF - American journal of epidemiology
IS - 2
ER -