Medical School OWL, Biostatistics and Medical Biometry, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr. 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Germany.
Chair for Medical Biometry and Epidemiology, Faculty of Health/School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2023 Feb 14;23(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s12874-023-01862-3.
Incidence is one of the most important epidemiologic indices in surveillance. However, determining incidence is complex and requires time-consuming cohort studies or registries with date of diagnosis. Estimating incidence from prevalence using mathematical relationships may facilitate surveillance efforts. The aim of this study was to examine whether a partial differential equation (PDE) can be used to estimate diabetes incidence from prevalence in youth.
We used age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity-specific estimates of prevalence in 2001 and 2009 as reported in the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study. Using these data, a PDE was applied to estimate the average incidence rates of type 1 and type 2 diabetes for the period between 2001 and 2009. Estimates were compared to annual incidence rates observed in SEARCH. Precision of the estimates was evaluated using 95% bootstrap confidence intervals.
Despite the long period between prevalence measures, the estimated average incidence rates mirror the average of the observed annual incidence rates. Absolute values of the age-standardized sex- and type-specific mean relative errors are below 8%.
Incidence of diabetes can be accurately estimated from prevalence. Since only cross-sectional prevalence data is required, employing this methodology in future studies may result in considerable cost savings.
发病率是监测中最重要的流行病学指标之一。然而，确定发病率非常复杂，需要进行耗时的队列研究或具有诊断日期的登记处。使用数学关系从患病率估计发病率可能会促进监测工作。本研究旨在检验偏微分方程（PDE）是否可用于从青少年的患病率估算糖尿病的发病率。
我们使用 2001 年和 2009 年 SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth 研究报告的年龄、性别和种族/族裔特异性患病率估计值。使用这些数据，应用 PDE 来估算 2001 年至 2009 年期间 1 型和 2 型糖尿病的平均发病率。将估计值与 SEARCH 中观察到的年度发病率进行比较。使用 95%的自举置信区间评估估计的精度。
尽管两次患病率测量之间的时间跨度很长，但估计的平均发病率与观察到的年度发病率平均值相符。标准化为年龄、性别和类型的平均相对误差的绝对值均低于 8%。
可以从患病率准确估算糖尿病的发病率。由于仅需要横断面患病率数据，因此在未来的研究中采用这种方法可能会节省大量成本。
