An Estimator Of Intervention Effect On Disease Severity

Authors

David Siev, USDA Center for Veterinary BiologicsFollow

Abstract

When a medical intervention prevents a dichotomous outcome, the size of its effect is often estimated with the prevented fraction. Some interventions may reduce the severity of an outcome without entirely preventing it. To quantify the effect of a severity-moderating intervention, a measure termed the mitigated fraction (MF) is proposed. MF has broad applicability, because it measures the overlap of two empirical distributions based on their stochastic ordering. It is also useful in the specific context of medical interventions, because it shares certain structural and functional features with the prevented fraction. The two measures may be applied together in a single semiparametric model with components for outcome prevention and for severity conditional on the presence of the outcome.

DOI

10.22237/jmasm/1130803980