Development and demonstration of a state model for the estimation of incidence of partly undetected chronic diseases. Issue 1 (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brinks, Ralph; Bardenheier, Barbara; Hoyer, Annika; Lin, Ji; Landwehr, Sandra; Gregg, Edward
• Is Part Of: BMC medical research methodology. Volume 15:Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 11
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: Compartment model -- Incidence -- Prevalence -- Diabetes -- Chronic disease -- Undiagnosed disease -- Case finding -- Screening -- Health and Retirement Study; Medicine -- Research -- Methodology -- Periodicals; 610.72
• DOI: 10.1186/s12874-015-0094-y
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-2288

Abstract

Abstract Background Estimation of incidence of the state of undiagnosed chronic disease provides a crucial missing link for the monitoring of chronic disease epidemics and determining the degree to which changes in prevalence are affected or biased by detection. Methods We developed a four-part compartment model for undiagnosed cases of irreversible chronic diseases with a preclinical state that precedes the diagnosis. Applicability of the model is tested in a simulation study of a hypothetical chronic disease and using diabetes data from theHealth and Retirement Study (HRS) . Results A two dimensional system of partial differential equations forms the basis for estimating incidence of the undiagnosed and diagnosed disease states from the prevalence of the associated states. In the simulation study we reach very good agreement between the estimates and the true values. Application to the HRS data demonstrates practical relevance of the methods. Discussion We have demonstrated the applicability of the modeling framework in a simulation study and in the analysis of theHealth and Retirement Study . The model provides insight into the epidemiology of undiagnosed chronic diseases.