Incidence RiskandIncidenceRate

JuanSanhuezaDVMPhD.

Ifyouhaveanyfollow upquestionsorcomments,please don'thesitatetocontactCarlesVilalta,JuanSanhuezaorEmilyGearyat

cvilalta@umn.edu,jsanhuez@umn.edu,orshmp@umn.edu.

Keypoints
Ͳ Incidenceriskisameasureofdiseaseoccurrenceoveradefinedperiodoftime.Itisaproportion,thereforetakesvalues
from0to1(0%to100%).
Ͳ Incidenceratetakesintoaccountthetimeanindividualisatriskofdisease.Itisnotaproportionsinceitdefinesthe
numberofcasesper animalor farmtimeat risk.
Ͳ IncidenceriskandIncidencerateareoftenconfused.Incidenceriskandratearenumericallythesamewhentheperiod
atriskdoesnotvaryacrossindividualsbeingstudied.

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Thisarticle isafollowuptotheSciencePagefromtheJune2nd,2017report

Incidenceriskisthetotalnumberofnewcasesdividedbythepopulationatriskatthebeginningoftheobservationperiod. Forexample,if
onehundredsowfarmswerefollowedforayear,andduringthistime10sowfarmsbrokewithadisease,thentheincidenceriskforthat
diseasewas0.1or10%.Inotherwords,asowfarmhasa10%chanceofbreakinginayear.Thisapproachworkswellforclosed
populationswherenoadditionsorsubtractionsoccurduringtheobservationperiod.Inthisscenario,allfarmshavethesame timeatrisk.

Thelongertheperiodoftimeafarmisobserved,thegreaterthechancesareforittoexperienceabreak.Therefore,ifthe timeatriskis
differentacrossfarms,themeasureofdiseaseoccurrencehastotakethetimeatriskintoaccount.

Now,let’ssayforexamplethatonehundredfarmswillbefollowedforayearbuttwomonthsintotheyear20farmsdecidedtowithdraw
fromthestudy.Then,6monthsintotheyear50farmsdecidedtoparticipateandreportdiseasebreaksuntiltheendoftheyear.Atthe
endofthestudyperiod,10breakswererecordedasshownintable1.Inthisscenarioincidenceriskcannotbecalculatedsince farmswere
atriskofbreakingfordifferentperiodsoftime.Therefore,itismoreappropriatetolookattheincidencerateofthefarmpopulation.

Table1:Incidenceratecalculation

IncidencerateisthetotalnumberofnewinfectionsdividedbytheanimalorherdͲtimeatriskduringtheobservationperiod(farmͲmonth
atrisk).InTable1example,incidencerateis10cases/1300farmͲmonthatrisk=0.0077casesperfarmͲmonthatriskor0.092casesper
farmͲyearatrisk(0.0077*12)or9casesper100farmͲyearsatrisk.

Althoughinterpretingincidenceratecanbechallenging,itisthepreferredmeasureofdiseaseoccurrencewhenthepopulationbeing
studiedisnotclosed.

6/9/2017