Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30318028›Full record

ArticleEpidemiology and infection2018

Assessing the relationship between epidemic growth scaling and epidemic size: The 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Tapiwa Ganyani, Kimberlyn Roosa, Christel Faes, Niel Hens, Gerardo Chowell

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Epidemiology and infection, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
1.3field-weighted citation impact, top 20% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. A Class of Deterministic and Stochastic Fractional Epidemic Models with Vaccination.Computational and mathematical methods in medicine · 2022
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Tapiwa GanyaniInteruniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics, UHasselt (Hasselt University), Diepenbeek, Belgium.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9116-3117
Kimberlyn RoosaDepartment of Population Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Christel FaesInteruniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics, UHasselt (Hasselt University), Diepenbeek, Belgium.
Niel HensInteruniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics, UHasselt (Hasselt University), Diepenbeek, Belgium.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1881-0637
Gerardo ChowellDepartment of Population Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Georgia State University · USHasselt University · BEUniversity of Antwerp · BE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

We assess the relationship between epidemic size and the scaling of epidemic growth of Ebola epidemics at the level of administrative areas during the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. For this purpose, we quantify growth scaling parameters from the ascending phase of Ebola outbreaks comprising at least 7 weeks of epidemic growth. We then study how these parameters are associated with observed epidemic sizes. For validation purposes, we also analyse two historic Ebola outbreaks. We find a high monotonic association between the scaling of epidemic growth parameter and the observed epidemic size. For example, scaling of growth parameters around 0.3-0.4, 0.4-0.6 and 0.6 are associated with epidemic sizes on the order of 350-460, 460-840 and 840-2500 cases, respectively. These results are not explained by differences in epidemic onset across affected areas. We also find the relationship between the scaling of epidemic growth parameter and the observed epidemic size to be consistent for two past Ebola outbreaks in Congo (1976) and Uganda (2000). Signature features of epidemic growth could become useful to assess the risk of observing a major epidemic outbreak, generate improved diseases forecasts and enhance the predictive power of epidemic models. Our results indicate that the epidemic growth scaling parameter is a useful indicator of epidemic size, which may have significant implications to guide control of Ebola outbreaks and possibly other infectious diseases.

Indexed as

Ebola epidemicepidemic modelingepidemic sizegeneralised growth modelsub-exponential growth

Identifiers

PMID30318028
PMCPMC6518536
OpenAlexW2896947574

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.