Bassi Francesca, Scarpa Bruno
Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Biodemography Soc Biol. 2020 Jan-Mar;65(1):41-56. doi: 10.1080/19485565.2020.1711703.
In this paper, we study the problem of heterogeneity in cervical mucus hydration at different times relative to the mucus peak both between cycles and women, specifying and estimating appropriate multilevel latent class models for longitudinal data. We estimate multilevel and growth latent class models which classify women on the basis of the evolution of cervical mucus characteristics observed over the fertile period of each menstrual cycle taking into account that we observe a different number of cycles per woman and correlation over time between consecutive observations. The effect of potential covariates on mucus evolution patterns is as well evaluated. Results confirm the existence of heterogeneity in mucus evolution between cycles and women. Moreover, an important significant effect of a woman's age is found.
在本文中，我们研究了相对于黏液峰值，不同周期和不同女性之间宫颈黏液水合作用在不同时间的异质性问题，为纵向数据指定并估计合适的多层次潜在类别模型。我们估计多层次和生长潜在类别模型，该模型根据每个月经周期的排卵期观察到的宫颈黏液特征演变对女性进行分类，同时考虑到我们观察到每位女性的周期数不同以及连续观察之间随时间的相关性。我们还评估了潜在协变量对黏液演变模式的影响。结果证实了不同周期和不同女性之间黏液演变存在异质性。此外，发现了女性年龄的重要显著影响。
