Abstract #300234

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JSM 2003 Abstract #300234
Activity Number: 416
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2003 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Stat. Sciences
Abstract - #300234
Title: Robust Prediction of Individual Animal Disease Status and Herd Revalence Using Several Similar Diagnostic Tests
Author(s): Richard B. Evans*+
Companies: Iowa State University
Address: College of Veterinary Medicine, Ames, IA, 5001-1250,
Keywords: Bayesian inference ; robust inference ; heavy tails
Abstract:

It is common in epidemiological studies to estimate disease status of individual subjects and estimate disease prevalence in a population of subjects. Frequently, several similar diagnostic tests are used, and none of the tests can be considered a definitive reference test. Although the tests are biologically similar, they may give conflicting results for some subjects, which affects inferences for the disease status of the concerned subject and the disease prevalence. In a recent article, McIntosh and Pepe (2002) propose a method for combining several screening tests, each lacking sufficient sensitivity and specificity, with the aim of improving screening ability. They show that the risk score (the probability of disease status conditional on biomarkers) is an optimal quantity with which to assess the disease status of a subject. We also use the risk score, but propose a robust model that downweights the effect of test results that are not consistent with the other results. The amount of downweighting depends on the degree of conflict; wildly disparate results are downweighted more than narrowly disagreeing results.

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