Estimating prevalence from the results of a screening test.
This paper deals with some basis properties of screening tests. Such tests purport to separate people with disease from people without. Minimal criteria for such a process to be a test are discussed. Various ways of judging the goodness of a test are examined. A common use of tests is to estimate prevalence of disease; frequency of positive tests is shown to be a bad estimate, and the necessary adjustmants are given.
D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D009017:Morbidity; D011159:Population Surveillance