Epidemic_Cold: Family Epidemics

In fitODBOD: Modeling Over Dispersed Binomial Outcome Data Using BMD and ABD

Family Epidemics

Description

In this investigation, families of the same size, two parents and three children, living in different circumstances of domestic overcrowding were visited at fortnightly intervals. The date of onset and the clinical nature of upper respiratory infectious experienced by each member of the family were charted on a time scale marked off in days. Family epidemics of acute coryza-or common colds-were thus available for analysis.

Usage

Epidemic_Cold

Format

A data frame with 6 columns and 5 rows

Cases

No of Further Cases

Families

No of Families

Father

Father with Status of Introducing Cases

Mother

Mother with Status of Introducing Cases

SChild

School Child with Status of Introducing Cases

PSChild

Pre-School Child with Status of Introducing Cases

Details

By inspection of the epidemic time charts, it was possible to identify new or primary introductions of illness into the household by the onset of a cold after a lapse of 10 days since the last such case in the same home. Two such cases occurring on the same or succeeding days were classified as multiple primaries. Thereafter, the links in the epidemic chain of spread were defined by an interval of one day or more between successive cases in the same family. These family epidemics could then be described thus 1-2-1, 1-1-1-0, 2-1-0, etc. It must be emphasized that although this method of classification is somewhat arbitrary, it was completed before the corresponding theoretical distributions were worked out and the interval chosen agrees with the distribution of presumptive incubation periods of the common cold seen in field surveys (e.g. Badger, Dingle, Feller, Hodges, Jordan, and Rammelkamp, 1953).

Source

Extracted from

Heasman, M. A. and Reid, D. D. (1961). "Theory and observation in family epidemics of the common cold." Br. J. pleu. SOC. Med., 15, 12-16.

Examples

Epidemic_Cold$Cases
sum(Epidemic_Cold$SChild)

fitODBOD documentation built on Oct. 10, 2024, 5:07 p.m.