Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38683878›Full record

ArticlePLoS computational biology2024

Bayesian workflow for time-varying transmission in stratified compartmental infectious disease transmission models.

Judith A Bouman, Anthony Hauser, Simon L Grimm, Martin Wohlfender, Samir Bhatt, Elizaveta Semenova, Andrew Gelman, Christian L Althaus, Julien Riou

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS computational biology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
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

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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

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Detecting changepoints in dynamical systems: Modeling time-varying transmission of seasonal influenza.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
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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

9 authors.

Judith A BoumanInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0003-3781-0675
Anthony HauserInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-7221-1929
Simon L GrimmInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-0632-4407
Martin WohlfenderInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-5252-0484
Samir BhattMRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Elizaveta SemenovaDepartment of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0002-8271-2575
Andrew GelmanDepartment of Statistics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America.
Christian L AlthausInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Julien RiouDepartment of Epidemiology and Health Systems, Unisanté, Center for Primary Care and Public Health & University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Funding

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program 196046National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) NIHR200908Swiss Federal Office of Public Health 142005806Swiss National Science Foundation 189498UK Department of Health and Social CareUK Medical Research Council MR/R015600/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Compartmental models that describe infectious disease transmission across subpopulations are central for assessing the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions, behavioral changes and seasonal effects on the spread of respiratory infections. We present a Bayesian workflow for such models, including four features: (1) an adjustment for incomplete case ascertainment, (2) an adequate sampling distribution of laboratory-confirmed cases, (3) a flexible, time-varying transmission rate, and (4) a stratification by age group. Within the workflow, we benchmarked the performance of various implementations of two of these features (2 and 3). For the second feature, we used SARS-CoV-2 data from the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) and found that a quasi-Poisson distribution is the most suitable sampling distribution for describing the overdispersion in the observed laboratory-confirmed cases. For the third feature, we implemented three methods: Brownian motion, B-splines, and approximate Gaussian processes (aGP). We compared their performance in terms of the number of effective samples per second, and the error and sharpness in estimating the time-varying transmission rate over a selection of ordinary differential equation solvers and tuning parameters, using simulated seroprevalence and laboratory-confirmed case data. Even though all methods could recover the time-varying dynamics in the transmission rate accurately, we found that B-splines perform up to four and ten times faster than Brownian motion and aGPs, respectively. We validated the B-spline model with simulated age-stratified data. We applied this model to 2020 laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases and two seroprevalence studies from the canton of Geneva. This resulted in detailed estimates of the transmission rate over time and the case ascertainment. Our results illustrate the potential of the presented workflow including stratified transmission to estimate age-specific epidemiological parameters. The workflow is freely available in the R package HETTMO, and can be easily adapted and applied to other infectious diseases.

Indexed as

Bayes TheoremCOVID-19SARS-CoV-2WorkflowAdultComputational BiologyComputer SimulationHumansSwitzerland

Identifiers

PMID38683878
PMCPMC11081492

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LicenceCC BY
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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.