UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Quantifying Trends in Disease Impact to Produce a Consistent and Reproducible Definition of an Emerging Infectious Disease

Funk, S; Bogich, TL; Jones, KE; Kilpatrick, AM; Daszak, P; (2013) Quantifying Trends in Disease Impact to Produce a Consistent and Reproducible Definition of an Emerging Infectious Disease. PLOS ONE , 8 (8) , Article e69951. 10.1371/journal.pone.0069951. Green open access

[thumbnail of Quantifying_tredns_in_disease_impact_fetchObject.pdf]
Preview
PDF
Quantifying_tredns_in_disease_impact_fetchObject.pdf

Download (270kB)

Abstract

The proper allocation of public health resources for research and control requires quantification of both a disease's current burden and the trend in its impact. Infectious diseases that have been labeled as “emerging infectious diseases” (EIDs) have received heightened scientific and public attention and resources. However, the label ‘emerging’ is rarely backed by quantitative analysis and is often used subjectively. This can lead to over-allocation of resources to diseases that are incorrectly labelled “emerging,” and insufficient allocation of resources to diseases for which evidence of an increasing or high sustained impact is strong. We suggest a simple quantitative approach, segmented regression, to characterize the trends and emergence of diseases. Segmented regression identifies one or more trends in a time series and determines the most statistically parsimonious split(s) (or joinpoints) in the time series. These joinpoints in the time series indicate time points when a change in trend occurred and may identify periods in which drivers of disease impact change. We illustrate the method by analyzing temporal patterns in incidence data for twelve diseases. This approach provides a way to classify a disease as currently emerging, re-emerging, receding, or stable based on temporal trends, as well as to pinpoint the time when the change in these trends happened. We argue that quantitative approaches to defining emergence based on the trend in impact of a disease can, with appropriate context, be used to prioritize resources for research and control. Implementing this more rigorous definition of an EID will require buy-in and enforcement from scientists, policy makers, peer reviewers and journal editors, but has the potential to improve resource allocation for global health.

Type: Article
Title: Quantifying Trends in Disease Impact to Produce a Consistent and Reproducible Definition of an Emerging Infectious Disease
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069951
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069951
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 Funk et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. PubMed ID: 23967065
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1403039
Downloads since deposit
263Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item