title: Estimating infectious diseases incidence: validity of capture-recapture analysis and truncated models for incomplete count data.
abstract: Capture-recapture analysis has been used to evaluate infectious disease surveillance. Violation of the underlying assumptions can jeopardize the validity of the capture-recapture estimates and a tool is needed for cross-validation. We re-examined 19 datasets of log-linear model capture-recapture studies on infectious disease incidence using three truncated models for incomplete count data as alternative population estimators. The truncated models yield comparable estimates to independent log-linear capture-recapture models and to parsimonious log-linear models when the number of patients is limited, or the ratio between patients registered once and twice is between 0.5 and 1.5. Compared to saturated log-linear models the truncated models produce considerably lower and often more plausible estimates. We conclude that for estimating infectious disease incidence independent and parsimonious three-source log-linear capture-recapture models are preferable but truncated models can be used as a heuristic tool to identify possible failure in log-linear models, especially when saturated log-linear models are selected.
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Disease Control, Municipal Public Health Service Rotterdam Area, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. vanhestr@ggd.rotterdam.nl
authors.forename: N A H
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: van Hest
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Smit
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Story
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Richardus
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016014:Linear Models; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000453:epidemiology