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Risk-Based Surveillance of HIV at the Los Angeles County Jail: a Bayesian Approach. Garrett Cox, MPH Mark Malek , MD, MPH Sonali Kulkarni , MD, MPH Los Angeles County Jail Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Biosurveillance AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN CORRECTIONS.
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Risk-Based Surveillance of HIV at the Los Angeles County Jail: a Bayesian Approach Garrett Cox, MPH Mark Malek, MD, MPH SonaliKulkarni, MD, MPH Los Angeles County Jail Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Biosurveillance AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN CORRECTIONS • SURVEILLANCE OF DISEASE IS A PRIMARY PUBLIC HEALTH FUNCTION • Estimating disease occurrence • Identifying risk factors • Detecting outbreaks • POPULATION SCREENING • Identification of new cases • Early detection of disease improves outcomes • CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS ARE ALREADY HIGH RISK • Who do we screen?
RISK-BASED SURVEILLANCE • HIV RISK FACTORS ARE WELL ESTABLISHED • Sexual behavior: MSM, previous or current STI’s • Mental Health and substance abuse • OBJECTIVE DATA FOR RISK ASSESSMENT IS AVAILABLE • Electronic medical records • Custody related data • SCREENING SHOULD FOCUS ON INDIVIDUALS MOST AT RISK MONITORING OF ROUTINE SCREENING COMBINED WITH RISK-BASED SCREENING CAN BOTH ESTIMATE RATES AND DETECT RATE INCREASES.
WHY BAYESIAN METHODS FOR SURVEILLANCE? • BAYESIAN METHODS TAKE INTO ACCOUNT PRIOR INFORMATION • Prior HIV rates • Prior population rates of risk factors • POSTERIOR RESULTS VERIFY OR UPDATE THE PRIOR ESTIMATION • New data is evaluated based on prior estimations • Changes update or refine prior probabilities • MODERN ADVANCES IN COMPUTING AND SIMULATION HAVE MADE BAYESIAN ANALYTICS PRACTICAL
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BAYESIAN AND TRADITIONAL APPROACHs BAYESIAN TRADITIONAL Makes statements based on long-run repetition Probabilities are objective and prior knowledge or data has no bearing • Makes direct statements based on observed data • Probabilities are subjective and based on prior knowledge or data
Prior data • ESTABLISHING PRIOR PROBABILITIES FOR A RISK-BASED SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM • 1.) Establish the prevalence of risk factors in a population • 2.) Calculate the HIV prevalence based for each risk factor • 3.) Use these probability distributions as the priors for establishing a risk-based approach
HIV and selected risk factors at the los Angeles county jail
Updating • NEW INCARCERATIONS WITH RISK FACTORS ARE IDENTIFIED • USING STRUCTURES ALREADY IN PLACE, OPT-OUT HIV TESTING IS ORDERED FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL • DATA ARE COLLECTED AND ANALYZED • PRIORS ARE UPDATED WITH POSTERIOR PROBABILITIES BASED ON NEW DATA: CHANGES TO PRIOR PROBABILTIES CAN INDICATE AN INCREASE IN DISEASE RATES • REPEAT
LIMITATIONS • POSTERIOR ODDS CAN BE HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY PRIORS • Priors should be supported by good preliminary data or knowledge • DATA ANALYSIS IS COMPUTATIONALLY INTENSIVE AND REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE STATISTICAL PROGRAMMING • BAYESIAN METHODS ARE NOT AS WIDELY KNOWN OR UTILIZED • ASCERTAINING THE PREVALENCE RATE AMONG INMATES WITHOUT KNOWN RISK FACTORS CAN BE PROBLEMATIC.
CONCLUSIONS • BAYESIAN METHODS PROVIDE AN INTUITIVE WAY OF COMBINING PRIOR INFORMATION WITH NEW DATA USING A SYSTEMATIC AND FLEXIBLE THEORETICAL APPROACH. • BAYESIAN METHODOLOGY IS IDEAL FOR IMPLEMENTATION IN CORRECTIONAL SETTINGS. • BAYESIAN UPDATING PROVIDES THE ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK FOR DESCRIBING DISEASE RATES AND FOR DETECTING CHANGES. • BY FOCUSING ON RISK FACTORS WE CAN PINPOINT SPECIFIC CHANGES WITHIN A LARGER POPULATION
REFERENCES Abbas, K, Mikler A, Ramezani A, and Menezes S. Computational Epidemiology: Bayesian Disease Surveillance, 09/01/2003-05/31/2005, Proceedings of the International Conference on Bioinformatics and its Applications (ICBA'04), Fort Lauderdale, FL, December, 2004, 2004 Lesaffe E, Lawson A. Bayesian Biostatistics.1stEd. New York: Wiley & Sons. 2012 Malek M, Bazazi AR, Cox G, Rival G, Baillargeon J, Miranda A, Rich JD. Implementing opt-out programs at Los Angeles county jail: a gateway to novel research and interventions. Journal of Correctional Health Care. 2011 Jan;17(1):69-76. O’Hagen A, Luce B. A primer on Bayesian Statistics in Health and Outcomes Research. MEDTAP: 2003.