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[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

Bayesian approach in estimating the seatbelt usage

Fu-Chih Cheng, PhD, Stacey Knight, MStat, and Larry J. Cook, MStat. Intermountain Injury Control Research Center, University of Utah, University of Utah, 615 Arapeen Drive, Suite 202, slc, UT 84108-1284, 801-587-9264, fu-chih.cheng@hsc.utah.edu

There is a concern of incorrect reporting of seatbelt usage by occupants in motor vehicle crash reports. There is no agreed standard statistical method to adjust for the incorrect information when computing the seatbelt usage rate. Currently, the seatbelt usage rate is computed as if there is no incorrect reporting of seatbelt usage. Therefore, the obtained estimator overestimates the true seatbelt usage. In this presentation the Bayesian seatbelt usage estimate is introduced by using national seatbelt usage rates as the prior information. It is reasonable to assume the number of belted occupants, X, has a binomial distribution with n total numbers of MVC and seatbelt usage rate p. Let pN be the national seatbelt usage rate and pobs (=X/n) be the observed proportion of belted occupants. It can be shown mathematically that the seatbelt usage rate given pN can be estimated as follow. To evaluate the properties of the above estimate, the simulation study was conducted. The absolute difference between the true value and estimated seatbelt usage rate was used to measure the quality of the estimate. The incorrect information on the observed belted occupants was assumed at 1%, 1.5%, and 2%. The true proportions of belted occupants and national seatbelt usage rates were examined from 0.5 to 0.9. The result showed the Bayesian estimate outperforms the usual estimate almost in all situations when the proportion of incorrect information is large (1.5% and 2%). Therefore the Bayesian estimate is warranted if the incorrect reporting is somewhat greater than 1%.

 

Learning Objectives:

Keywords: Methodology, Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Intermountain Injury Control Research Center
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

Biostatistical Methods in Public Health Research and Practice

The 132nd Annual Meeting (November 6-10, 2004) of APHA