ArticleTheoretical biology & medical modelling2017
Estimating the prevalence of infectious diseases from under-reported age-dependent compulsorily notification databases.
Article in Theoretical biology & medical modelling, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Understanding Dengue Underreporting: An Analysis of the Impacts for the World, Latin America and Brazil.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2025Review
- Regional differences and temporal trend analysis of Hepatitis B in Brazil.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Assessing the reporting of Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika to the National Surveillance System in Colombia from 2014-2017: A Capture-recapture analysis accounting for misclassification of arboviral diagnostics.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Observational
- Laboratory capacity of Greek hospitals for diagnosis of salmonellosis and surveillance systems' performance in the years of economic crisis, 2010-2016.Epidemiology and infection · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundNational or local laws, norms or regulations (sometimes and in some countries) require medical providers to report notifiable diseases to public health authorities. Reporting, however, is almost always incomplete. This is due to a variety of reasons, ranging from not recognizing the diseased to failures in the technical or administrative steps leading to the final official register in the disease notification system. The reported fraction varies from 9 to 99% and is strongly associated with the disease being reported.
methodsIn this paper we propose a method to approximately estimate the full prevalence (and any other variable or parameter related to transmission intensity) of infectious diseases. The model assumes incomplete notification of incidence and allows the estimation of the non-notified number of infections and it is illustrated by the case of hepatitis C in Brazil. The method has the advantage that it can be corrected iteratively by comparing its findings with empirical results.
resultsThe application of the model for the case of hepatitis C in Brazil resulted in a prevalence of notified cases that varied between 163,902 and 169,382 cases; a prevalence of non-notified cases that varied between 1,433,638 and 1,446,771; and a total prevalence of infections that varied between 1,597,540 and 1,616,153 cases.
conclusionsWe conclude that the model proposed can be useful for estimation of the actual magnitude of endemic states of infectious diseases, particularly for those where the number of notified cases is only the tip of the iceberg. In addition, the method can be applied to other situations, such as the well-known underreported incidence of criminality (for example rape), among others.
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