Exploratory Analysis of Disease Prevalence Data from Survival/Sacrifice Experiments

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The problem of analyzing disease prevalence data from survival experiments in which there may be some serial sacrifice was examined. The primary objective of the analysis was to describe the composition of the treated and control populations, in terms of age-dependent disease prevalences, by removing distortions in the data caused by the biased nature of the primary sampling mechanism (death). The statistical model which was utilized for this purpose was parametrized in terms of illness state prevalences and lethalities. It does not require determination of cause of death nor does it assume that diseases progress independently. Methods were presented for estimating various quantities of interest, including disease-specific relative risks and measures of association among diseases. An application of this analysis was shown, using data from a large experiment to investigate the effects of low-level radiation on laboratory mice.