ArticlePloS one2023
Assessing the heterogeneity in the transmission of infectious diseases from time series of epidemiological data.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unjustified Poisson assumptions lead to overconfident estimates of the effective reproductive number.Epidemiology and infection · 2026Article
- Time-series modeling of epidemics in complex populations: Detecting changes in incidence volatility over time.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Monitoring real-time transmission heterogeneity from incidence data.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Structural features and the heterogeneity of disease transmissions play an essential role in the dynamics of epidemic spread. But these aspects can not completely be assessed from aggregate data or macroscopic indicators such as the effective reproduction number. We propose in this paper an index of effective aggregate dispersion (EffDI) that indicates the significance of infection clusters and superspreading events in the progression of outbreaks by carefully measuring the level of relative stochasticity in time series of reported case numbers using a specially crafted statistical model for reproduction. This allows to detect potential transitions from predominantly clustered spreading to a diffusive regime with diminishing significance of singular clusters, which can be a decisive turning point in the progression of outbreaks and relevant in the planning of containment measures. We evaluate EffDI for SARS-CoV-2 case data in different countries and compare the results with a quantifier for the socio-demographic heterogeneity in disease transmissions in a case study to substantiate that EffDI qualifies as a measure for the heterogeneity in transmission dynamics.
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Registered trials
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.