Skip Navigation

Biometrika 1981 68(1):133-141; doi:10.1093/biomet/68.1.133
© 1981 by Biometrika Trust
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by BECKER, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

The infectiousness of a disease within households

NIELS BECKER

Department of Mathematical Statistics, La Trobe University Bundoora, Victoria

The potential that an infective has for infecting a given susceptible from the same household is quantified as a random variable depending on the duration of the infectious period, the severity of the illness and the mobility of the infective. Procedures for making inference about both the mean value and the variance of this potential are proposed. In particular, the proposed analysis makes it possible to test whether infectives display significant differences in their infectiousness. The methods apply to diseases which are moderately infectious and their implementation requires data on the sizes of outbreaks in a collection of households. The procedures involve only simple computations which are easily done manually. Common cold data are used to illustrate the results.

Key Words: Common cold data • Difference in infectiousness • Epidemic model • Infection potential • Infectious disease data • Martingale • Stochastic integration


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Stat Methods Med ResHome page
N. Becker
Martingale methods for the analysis of epidemic data
Statistical Methods in Medical Research, March 1, 1993; 2(1): 93 - 112.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.