David Kahle

A Bayesian Approach to Account for Misclassification and Overdispersion in Count Data

Count data are subject to considerable sources of what is often referred to as non-sampling error. Errors such as misclassification, measurement error and unmeasured confounding can lead to substantially biased estimators. It is strongly recommended that epidemiologists not only acknowledge these sorts of errors in data, but incorporate sensitivity analyses into part of the total data analysis. We extend previous work on Poisson regression models that allow for misclassification by thoroughly discussing the basis for the models and allowing for extra-Poisson variability in the form of random effects. Via simulation we show the improvements in inference that are brought about by accounting for both the misclassification and the overdispersion.

Graphical prior elicitation in univariate models

ABSTRACT Standard prior elicitation procedures require experts to explicitly quantify their beliefs about parameters in the form of multiple summaries. In this article, we draw on recent advances in the statistical graphics and information visualization communities to propose a novel elicitation scheme that implicitly learns an expert’s opinions through their sequential selection of graphics of carefully constructed hypothetical future samples. While the scheme can be applied to a broad array of models, we use it to construct procedures for elicitation in data models commonly used in practice: Bernoulli, Poisson, and Normal. We also provide open-source, web-based Shiny implementations of the procedures.

Confidence intervals for the ratio of two Poisson rates under one-way differential misclassification using double sampling

Wald, profile likelihood, and marginal likelihood confidence intervals are derived for the ratio of two Poisson rates in the presence of one-way differentially misclassified data using double sampling. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the reliability and relative performance of the intervals, and an example from cancer epidemiology illustrates their application and interpretation in a real-world scenario. All of the methods described are implemented and freely available in the R package poisDoubleSamp on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).