Quantifying the hidden costs of imperfect detection for early detection surveillance

A - Papers appearing in refereed journals

Mastin, A. J., Van Den Bosch, F., Van Den Berg, F. and Parnell, S. R. 2019. Quantifying the hidden costs of imperfect detection for early detection surveillance. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences. 374 (1776). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0261

AuthorsMastin, A. J., Van Den Bosch, F., Van Den Berg, F. and Parnell, S. R.
Abstract

The global spread of pathogens poses an increasing threat to health, ecosystems and agriculture worldwide. As early detection of new incursions is key to effective control, new diagnostic tests that can detect pathogen presence shortly after initial infection hold great potential for detection of infection in individual hosts. However, these tests may be too expensive to be implemented at the sampling intensities required for early detection of a new epidemic at the population level. To evaluate the trade-off between earlier and/or more reliable detection and higher deployment costs, we need to consider the impacts of test performance, test cost and pathogen epidemiology. Regarding test performance, the period before new infections can be first detected and the probability of detecting them are of particular importance. We propose a generic framework that can be easily used to evaluate a variety of different detection methods and identify important characteristics of the pathogen and the detection method to consider when planning early detection surveillance. We demonstrate the application of our method using the plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum in the UK, and find that visual inspec-tion for this pathogen is a more cost-effective strategy for early detection surveillance than an early detection diagnostic test.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: epidemic forecasting and control’. This theme issue is linked with the earlier issue ‘Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: approaches and important themes’.

Keywordsearly detection; invasive species; surveillance; diagnosis; epidemic model; detection
Year of Publication2019
JournalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
Journal citation374 (1776)
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0261
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
FunderDepartment of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Publisher's version
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online20 May 2019
Publication process dates
Accepted15 Jan 2019
Copyright licenseCC BY
PublisherRoyal Society Publishing
ISSN0962-8436

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