title: Multilist population estimation with incomplete and partial stratification.
abstract: Multilist capture-recapture methods are commonly used to estimate the size of elusive populations. In many situations, lists are stratified by distinguishing features, such as age or sex. Stratification has often been used to reduce biases caused by heterogeneity in the probability of list membership among members of the population; however, it is increasingly common to find lists that are structurally not active in all strata. We develop a general method to deal with cases when not all lists are active in all strata using an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. We use a flexible log-linear modeling framework that allows for list dependencies and differential probabilities of ascertainment in each list. Finally, we apply our method of estimating population size to two examples.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-2872, USA. jimsuther@iupui.edu
authors.forename: Jason M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sutherland
authors.forename: Carl James
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Schwarz
authors.forename: Louis-Paul
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Rivest
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001699:Biometry / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003710:Demography; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011156:Population Density; D011157:Population Dynamics; D018401:Sample Size; D016008:Statistical Distributions