Skip to main content

Table 2 Comparative detection delays

From: Automated real time constant-specificity surveillance for disease outbreaks

Detection method

Mean specificity

Mean sensitivity

Mean detection lag (days)

Autoregression

0.97

0.40

2.26

Serfling

0.97

0.36

2.37

Trimmed seasonal

0.97

0.42

2.26

Wavelet

0.98

0.38

2.43

Generalized linear

0.95

0.68

1.93

Expectation-variance

0.97

0.58

1.96

  1. Mean lag in detecting outbreaks of five additional patients per day superimposed on the pediatric ED respiratory visits, August 1998 – July 2004. Detection lag calculations exclude undetected outbreaks. Hence the sensitivity of the method must be considered when interpreting the detection lag.