December 2023 Addressing selection bias and measurement error in COVID-19 case count data using auxiliary information
Walter Dempsey
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Ann. Appl. Stat. 17(4): 2903-2923 (December 2023). DOI: 10.1214/23-AOAS1744

Abstract

Coronavirus case-count data has influenced government policies and drives most epidemiological forecasts. Limited testing is cited as the key driver behind minimal information on the COVID-19 pandemic. While expanded testing is laudable, measurement error and selection bias are the two greatest problems limiting our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic; neither can be fully addressed by increased testing capacity. In this paper we demonstrate their impact on estimation of point prevalence and the effective reproduction number. We show that estimates, based on the millions of molecular tests in the U.S., have the same mean square error as a small simple random sample. To address this, a procedure is presented that combines case-count data and random samples over time to estimate selection propensities based on key covariate information. We then combine these selection propensities with epidemiological forecast models to construct a doubly robust estimation method that accounts for both measurement-error and selection bias. This method is then applied to estimate Indiana’s active infection prevalence using case-count, hospitalization, and death data with demographic information, a statewide random molecular sample collected from April 25–29, 2020, and Delphi’s COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey. We end with a series of recommendations based on the proposed methodology.

Citation

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Walter Dempsey. "Addressing selection bias and measurement error in COVID-19 case count data using auxiliary information." Ann. Appl. Stat. 17 (4) 2903 - 2923, December 2023. https://doi.org/10.1214/23-AOAS1744

Information

Received: 1 September 2021; Revised: 1 January 2023; Published: December 2023
First available in Project Euclid: 30 October 2023

MathSciNet: MR4661681
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1214/23-AOAS1744

Keywords: Covid-19 , Doubly robust estimation , inverse-probability weighting , measurement error , selection bias

Rights: Copyright © 2023 Institute of Mathematical Statistics

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Vol.17 • No. 4 • December 2023
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