Document 0316
 DOCN  M9550316
 TI    Studies of AIDS and HIV surveillance. Screening tests: can we get more
       by doing less?
 DT    9505
 AU    Tu XM; Litvak E; Pagano M; Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
       University of; Pittsburgh, PA 15240.
 SO    Stat Med. 1994 Oct 15-30;13(19-20):1905-19. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE
       MED/95148991
 AB    Estimating the prevalence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a
       group is challenging; this is especially so when the prevalence is
       small. One reason is that the presence of measurement errors resulting
       from the limited precision of tests makes estimation, using traditional
       methods, impossible in some screening situations. Measurement error is
       real, ignoring it leads to severe bias, and inference about the
       prevalence becomes unsatisfactory. Indeed, in a low prevalence situation
       the expected number of false positives is very high, often even higher
       than the number of true positives. The second reason is that in the low
       prevalence areas the large sample is needed in order to obtain non-zero
       estimate. This is usually a very costly, and often unrealistic,
       solution. This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of
       pooled testing as an alternative solution to this problem. We show that
       by pooling sera samples we not only achieve a cost saving but also,
       which is counterintuitive, an increase in the estimation accuracy. We
       also discuss the statistical issues associated with the resulting
       estimator.
 DE    Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/DIAGNOSIS/*EPIDEMIOLOGY  Blood
       Specimen Collection/*STATISTICS & NUMER DATA  Confidence Intervals
       Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/METHODS/STATISTICS & NUMER DATA  Human
       HIV Infections/DIAGNOSIS/*EPIDEMIOLOGY  Likelihood Functions  Models,
       Statistical  Population Surveillance/*METHODS  Prevalence  Sample Size
       Selection Bias  Sensitivity and Specificity  Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
       Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.  JOURNAL ARTICLE

       SOURCE: National Library of Medicine.  NOTICE: This material may be
       protected by Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.Code).