A Bayesian spatial–temporal varying coefficients model for estimating excess deaths associated with respiratory infections
提出贝叶斯时空变系数模型，利用感染活动数据估计未在死亡证明中记录的呼吸道感染（如流感和COVID-19）超额死亡，并应用于美国COVID-19数据发现不同年龄组时空差异。
Disease surveillance data are used for monitoring and understanding disease burden, which provides valuable information in allocating health programme resources. Statistical methods play an important role in estimating disease burden since disease surveillance systems are prone to undercounting. This paper is motivated by the challenge of estimating mortality associated with respiratory infections (e.g. influenza and COVID-19) that are not ascertained from death certificates. We propose a Bayesian spatial-temporal model incorporating measures of infection activity to estimate excess deaths. Particularly, the inclusion of time-varying coefficients allows us to better characterize associations between infection activity and mortality counts time series. Software to implement this method is available in the R package NBRegAD. Applying our modelling framework to weekly state-wide COVID-19 data in the US from 8 March 2020 to 3 July 2022, we identified temporal and spatial differences in excess deaths between different age groups. We estimated the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the US to be 1,168,481 (95% CI: 1,148,953 1,187,187) compared to the 1,022,147 from using only death certificate information. The analysis also suggests that the most severe undercounting was in the 18-49 years age group with an estimated underascertainment rate of 0.21 (95% CI: 0.16, 0.25).