Challenger Joseph D, Nash Rebecca K, Ngufor Corine, Sanou Antoine, Toé K Hyacinthe, Moore Sarah, Tungu Patrick K, Rowland Mark, Foster Geraldine M, N'Guessan Raphael, Sherrard-Smith Ellie, Churcher Thomas S
Medical Research Council Centre for Global Infections Disease Analysis, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Centre de Recherches Entomologiques de Cotonou, Cotonou, Benin.
Curr Res Parasitol Vector Borne Dis. 2023 Feb 9;3:100115. doi: 10.1016/j.crpvbd.2023.100115. eCollection 2023.
Experimental hut trials (EHTs) are used to evaluate indoor vector control interventions against malaria vectors in a controlled setting. The level of variability present in the assay will influence whether a given study is well powered to answer the research question being considered. We utilised disaggregated data from 15 previous EHTs to gain insight into the behaviour typically observed. Using simulations from generalised linear mixed models to obtain power estimates for EHTs, we show how factors such as the number of mosquitoes entering the huts each night and the magnitude of included random effects can influence study power. A wide variation in behaviour is observed in both the mean number of mosquitoes collected per hut per night (ranging from 1.6 to 32.5) and overdispersion in mosquito mortality. This variability in mortality is substantially greater than would be expected by chance and should be included in all statistical analyses to prevent false precision of results. We utilise both superiority and non-inferiority trials to illustrate our methodology, using mosquito mortality as the outcome of interest. The framework allows the measurement error of the assay to be reliably assessed and enables the identification of outlier results which could warrant further investigation. EHTs are increasingly playing an important role in the evaluation and regulation of indoor vector control interventions so it is important to ensure that these studies are adequately powered.
实验小屋试验（EHTs）用于在可控环境中评估针对疟疾媒介的室内病媒控制干预措施。该检测中存在的变异性水平将影响给定研究是否有足够的效力来回答所考虑的研究问题。我们利用了之前15项EHTs的分类数据，以深入了解通常观察到的行为。通过广义线性混合模型的模拟来获得EHTs的效力估计，我们展示了诸如每晚进入小屋的蚊子数量和纳入的随机效应大小等因素如何影响研究效力。每晚每个小屋收集的蚊子平均数量（范围从1.6到32.5）以及蚊子死亡率的过度离散均观察到行为上的广泛差异。这种死亡率的变异性远大于偶然预期，应纳入所有统计分析中以防止结果出现虚假精确性。我们使用优效性试验和非劣效性试验来阐述我们的方法，将蚊子死亡率作为感兴趣的结果。该框架允许可靠地评估检测的测量误差，并能够识别可能需要进一步调查的异常结果。EHTs在室内病媒控制干预措施的评估和监管中越来越发挥重要作用，因此确保这些研究有足够的效力很重要。
