title: Methods for capture-recapture analysis when cases lack personal identifiers.
abstract: Methods for estimating the size of a closed population from a capture-recapture study require the availability of unique identifiers on each of two lists. These identifiers are used to identify the number of individuals appearing on both lists. When the number of individuals appearing on both lists cannot be determined with certainty from the data, matching between the lists is problematic. In this paper, we develop a weighted estimator to account for all possible matches between two lists. A bootstrap procedure is proposed for estimation. To illustrate the methods, we used two lists that recorded New York State (NYS) hospitalizations due to pertussis in 1996 to estimate the number of persons hospitalized for pertussis in NYS that year.
authors.affiliation: Division of Diabetes Translation, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3470 Buford Highway, Atlanta, GA 30341, U.S.A. bcadwell@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Betsy L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Cadwell
authors.forename: Philip J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Andrew L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Baughman
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009518:New York; D014917:Whooping Cough