Wastewater-Based Epidemiology of Stimulant Drugs: Functional Data Analysis Compared to Traditional Statistical Methods.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a new methodology for estimating the drug load in a population. Simple summary statistics and specification tests have typically been used to analyze WBE data, comparing differences between weekday and weekend loads. Such standard statistical methods may, however, overlook important nuanced information in the data. In this study, we apply functional data analysis (FDA) to WBE data and compare the results to those obtained from more traditional summary measures.

Methods

We analysed temporal WBE data from 42 European cities, using sewage samples collected daily for one week in March 2013. For each city, the main temporal features of two selected drugs were extracted using functional principal component (FPC) analysis, along wit

SUBMITTER: Salvatore S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4578919 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature