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Epidemiol Infect. 2014 Dec 12:1-9. [Epub ahead of print]
Using winter 2009-2010 to assess the accuracy of methods which estimate influenza-related morbidity and mortality.
Jackson ML1, Peterson D1, Nelson JC1, Greene SK2, Jacobsen SJ3, Belongia EA4, Baxter R5, Jackson LA1.
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Abstract
SUMMARY We used the winter of 2009-2010, which had minimal influenza circulation due to the earlier 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, to test the accuracy of ecological trend methods used to estimate influenza-related deaths and hospitalizations. We aggregated weekly counts of person-time, all-cause deaths, and hospitalizations for pneumonia/influenza and respiratory/circulatory conditions from seven healthcare systems. We predicted the incidence of the outcomes during the winter of 2009-2010 using three different methods: a cyclic (Serfling) regression model, a cyclic regression model with viral circulation data (virological regression), and an autoregressive, integrated moving average model with viral circulation data (ARIMAX). We compared predicted non-influenza incidence with actual winter incidence. All three models generally displayed high accuracy, with prediction errors for death ranging from -5% to -2%. For hospitalizations, errors ranged from -10% to -2% for pneumonia/influenza and from -3% to 0% for respiratory/circulatory. The Serfling and virological models consistently outperformed the ARIMAX model. The three methods tested could predict incidence of non-influenza deaths and hospitalizations during a winter with negligible influenza circulation. However, meaningful mis-estimation of the burden of influenza can still result with outcomes for which the contribution of influenza is low, such as all-cause mortality.
PMID: 25496703 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Using winter 2009-2010 to assess the accuracy of methods which estimate influenza-related morbidity and mortality.
Jackson ML1, Peterson D1, Nelson JC1, Greene SK2, Jacobsen SJ3, Belongia EA4, Baxter R5, Jackson LA1.
Author information
Abstract
SUMMARY We used the winter of 2009-2010, which had minimal influenza circulation due to the earlier 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, to test the accuracy of ecological trend methods used to estimate influenza-related deaths and hospitalizations. We aggregated weekly counts of person-time, all-cause deaths, and hospitalizations for pneumonia/influenza and respiratory/circulatory conditions from seven healthcare systems. We predicted the incidence of the outcomes during the winter of 2009-2010 using three different methods: a cyclic (Serfling) regression model, a cyclic regression model with viral circulation data (virological regression), and an autoregressive, integrated moving average model with viral circulation data (ARIMAX). We compared predicted non-influenza incidence with actual winter incidence. All three models generally displayed high accuracy, with prediction errors for death ranging from -5% to -2%. For hospitalizations, errors ranged from -10% to -2% for pneumonia/influenza and from -3% to 0% for respiratory/circulatory. The Serfling and virological models consistently outperformed the ARIMAX model. The three methods tested could predict incidence of non-influenza deaths and hospitalizations during a winter with negligible influenza circulation. However, meaningful mis-estimation of the burden of influenza can still result with outcomes for which the contribution of influenza is low, such as all-cause mortality.
PMID: 25496703 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
