Abstract
Within an area of sub-Saharan Africa termed 'the meningitis belt', meningococcal meningitis epidemics are a major public health concern. The epidemic control strategy that is currently utilized is reactive, such that a vaccination programme is initiated in a district once a predefined weekly incidence threshold has been exceeded. We report progress towards the development of an early warning system based on statistical modelling of district level weekly incidence data. Four modelling approaches are considered and their forecasting performances are compared by using weekly epidemiological data from Niger for the period 1986-2007. We conclude that the models under consideration are advantageous in different situations. The three-state Markov model described in which observed incidence is categorized according to policy-defined thresholds gives the most reliable short-term forecasts, whereas the dynamic linear model proposed, using log-transformed weekly incidence as the response variable, gives more reliable predictions of annual epidemics.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 661-678 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society |
| Volume | 177 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
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Keywords
- Dynamic generalized linear models
- Epidemic control
- Markov chain
- Meningitis belt
- Meningococcal meningitis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- Economics and Econometrics
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
Cite this
Towards realtime spatiotemporal prediction of district level meningitis incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. / Stanton, Michelle C.; Agier, and Lydiane; Taylor, Benjamin M.; Diggle, Peter J.
In: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society, Vol. 177, No. 3, 2014, p. 661-678.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards realtime spatiotemporal prediction of district level meningitis incidence in sub-Saharan Africa
AU - Stanton, Michelle C.
AU - Agier, and Lydiane
AU - Taylor, Benjamin M.
AU - Diggle, Peter J.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Within an area of sub-Saharan Africa termed 'the meningitis belt', meningococcal meningitis epidemics are a major public health concern. The epidemic control strategy that is currently utilized is reactive, such that a vaccination programme is initiated in a district once a predefined weekly incidence threshold has been exceeded. We report progress towards the development of an early warning system based on statistical modelling of district level weekly incidence data. Four modelling approaches are considered and their forecasting performances are compared by using weekly epidemiological data from Niger for the period 1986-2007. We conclude that the models under consideration are advantageous in different situations. The three-state Markov model described in which observed incidence is categorized according to policy-defined thresholds gives the most reliable short-term forecasts, whereas the dynamic linear model proposed, using log-transformed weekly incidence as the response variable, gives more reliable predictions of annual epidemics.
AB - Within an area of sub-Saharan Africa termed 'the meningitis belt', meningococcal meningitis epidemics are a major public health concern. The epidemic control strategy that is currently utilized is reactive, such that a vaccination programme is initiated in a district once a predefined weekly incidence threshold has been exceeded. We report progress towards the development of an early warning system based on statistical modelling of district level weekly incidence data. Four modelling approaches are considered and their forecasting performances are compared by using weekly epidemiological data from Niger for the period 1986-2007. We conclude that the models under consideration are advantageous in different situations. The three-state Markov model described in which observed incidence is categorized according to policy-defined thresholds gives the most reliable short-term forecasts, whereas the dynamic linear model proposed, using log-transformed weekly incidence as the response variable, gives more reliable predictions of annual epidemics.
KW - Dynamic generalized linear models
KW - Epidemic control
KW - Markov chain
KW - Meningitis belt
KW - Meningococcal meningitis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84901275790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84901275790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/rssa.12033
DO - 10.1111/rssa.12033
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84901275790
VL - 177
SP - 661
EP - 678
JO - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society
JF - Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A: Statistics in Society
SN - 0964-1998
IS - 3
ER -