JSM 2012 Home

JSM 2012 Online Program

The views expressed here are those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of the JSM sponsors, their officers, or their staff.

Online Program Home

Abstract Details

Activity Number: 634
Type: Invited
Date/Time: Thursday, August 2, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
Abstract - #303542
Title: Graphical Methods for Making Empirically Supported Decisions in Emerging Epidemics
Author(s): Justin Lessler*+
Companies: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Address: Department of Epidemiology, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA
Keywords: uncertainty ; infectious disease ; graphical displays
Abstract:

During the early stages of disease emergence policy makers are must make crucial decisions under significant uncertainty. In the early stages of an epidemic, only limited evidence may be available concerning the disease's virulence, transmissibility, incubation period and other critical parameters. However, the early stages of an emergent epidemic are when critical decisions are made about how to respond and people most want to know how the outbreak will unfold. While decision theory provides an approach for making decisions under uncertainty, these methods tend to be poorly understood by all but experts, and their results tend to be interpreted as rock solid predictions, washing away the uncertainty they were meant to capture. Graphical displays of uncertainty offer a method for making these techniques accessible, potentially providing intuitive displays of current uncertainty and decision rules. In this talk I will present techniques for generating "uncertainty landscapes" given limited empirical evidence using Bayesian and likelihood based techniques. I will show how decision rules can be embedded in these landscapes and used by policy makers to reason under uncertainty.


The address information is for the authors that have a + after their name.
Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

Back to the full JSM 2012 program




2012 JSM Online Program Home

For information, contact jsm@amstat.org or phone (888) 231-3473.

If you have questions about the Continuing Education program, please contact the Education Department.