A New Method for Estimating the Number of Undiagnosed HIV Infected Based on HIV Testing History, with an Application to Men Who Have Sex with Men in Seattle/King County, WA.

ABSTRACT: We develop a new approach for estimating the undiagnosed fraction of HIV cases, the first step in the HIV Care Cascade. The goal is to address a critical blindspot in HIV prevention and treatment planning, with an approach that simplifies data requirements and can be implemented with open-source software. The primary data required is HIV testing history information on newly diagnosed cases. Two methods are presented and compared. The first is a general methodology based on simplified back-calculation that can be used to assess changes in the undiagnosed fraction over time. The second makes an assumption of constant incidence, allowing the estimate to be expressed as a simple closed formula calculation. We demonstrate the methods with an application to HIV diagnoses among men who have sex w

SUBMITTER: Fellows IE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4510124 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature