scholarly journals Evaluating distributional regression strategies for modelling self-reported sexual age-mixing

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy M Wolock ◽  
Seth Flaxman ◽  
Kathryn A Risher ◽  
Tawanda Dadirai ◽  
Simon Gregson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Sexual Partner ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Transmitted Disease ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Partnership Formation ◽  
Mixing Dynamics ◽  
Diverse Data ◽  
Distributional Regression

The age dynamics of sexual partnership formation determine patterns of sexually transmitted disease transmission and have long been a focus of researchers studying human immunodeficiency virus. Data on self-reported sexual partner age distributions are available from a variety of sources. We sought to explore statistical models that accurately predict the distribution of sexual partner ages over age and sex. We identified which probability distributions and outcome specifications best captured variation in partner age and quantified the benefits of modelling these data using distributional regression. We found that distributional regression with a sinh-arcsinh distribution replicated observed partner age distributions most accurately across three geographically diverse data sets. This framework can be extended with well-known hierarchical modelling tools and can help improve estimates of sexual age-mixing dynamics.

scholarly journals Men’s Perception of Raped Women: Test of the Sexually Transmitted Disease Hypothesis and the Cuckoldry Hypothesis

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavol Prokop ◽  
Ladislav Pekárik
Keyword(s):  
Sexually Transmitted Diseases ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Sexually Transmitted Disease ◽  
Transmitted Disease ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Negative Perception ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Paternity Uncertainty ◽  
Mating Opportunities

AbstractRape is a recurrent adaptive problem of female humans and females of a number of non-human animals. Rape has various physiological and reproductive costs to the victim. The costs of rape are furthermore exaggerated by social rejection and blaming of a victim, particularly by men. The negative perception of raped women by men has received little attention from an evolutionary perspective. Across two independent studies, we investigated whether the risk of sexually transmitted diseases (the STD hypothesis, Hypothesis 1) or paternity uncertainty (the cuckoldry hypothesis, Hypothesis 2) influence the negative perception of raped women by men. Raped women received lower attractiveness score than non-raped women, especially in long-term mate attractiveness score. The perceived attractiveness of raped women was not influenced by the presence of experimentally manipulated STD cues on faces of putative rapists. Women raped by three men received lower attractiveness score than women raped by one man. These results provide stronger support for the cuckoldry hypothesis (Hypothesis 2) than for the STD hypothesis (Hypothesis 1). Single men perceived raped women as more attractive than men in a committed relationship (Hypothesis 3), suggesting that the mating opportunities mediate men’s perception of victims of rape. Overall, our results suggest that the risk of cuckoldry underlie the negative perception of victims of rape by men rather than the fear of disease transmission.

scholarly journals The Metalog Distributions: Virtually Unlimited Shape Flexibility with Bayesian Updating in Closed Form

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Keelin ◽  
Ronald A. Howard
Keyword(s):  
Probability Distribution ◽  
Closed Form ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Bayesian Updating ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Bayes Rule ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Human Endeavor ◽  
Multiple Experts ◽  
Diverse Data

Users of probability distributions frequently need to convert data (empirical, simulated, or elicited) into a continuous probability distribution and to update that distribution when new data becomes available. Often, it is unclear which traditional probability distribution(s) to use, fitting to data is laborious and unsatisfactory, little insight emerges, and updating with Bayes rule is impractical. Here we offer an alternative -- a family of continuous probability distributions, fitting methods, and tools that: provide sufficient shape and boundedness flexibility to closely match virtually any probability distribution and most data sets; involve a single set of simple closed-form equations; stimulate potentially valuable insights when applied to empirical data; are simply fit to data with ordinary least squares; are easy to combine (as when weighting the opinion of multiple experts), and, under certain conditions, are easily updated in closed form according to Bayes rule when new data becomes available. The Bayesian updating method is presented in a way that is readily understandable as a fisherman updates his catch probabilities when changing the river on which he fishes. While metalog applications have been shown to improve decision-making, the methods and results herein are broadly applicable to virtually any use of continuous probability in any field of human endeavor. Diverse data sets may be explored and modeled in these new ways with freely available spreadsheets and tools.

A MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS OF ZIKA VIRUS EPIDEMIC IN RIO DE JANEIRO AS A VECTOR-BORNE AND SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (01) ◽  
pp. 83-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUSTAVO CRUZ-PACHECO ◽  
LOURDES ESTEVA ◽  
CLAUDIA PIO FERREIRA
Keyword(s):  
Basic Reproduction Number ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Transmission Rate ◽  
Sexual Transmission ◽  
Transmitted Disease ◽  
Infectious Period ◽  
Sexually Transmitted

In this work we formulate a mathematical model to assess the importance of sexual transmission during the Zika virus outbreak that occurred in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2015. To this end, we deduce from the model an analytical expression of the basic reproduction number of Zika, [Formula: see text], in terms of the vectorial and sexual transmissions, and we use the estimations given in Ref. 1 [Villela DAM, Bastos LS, de Carvalho LM, Cruz OG, Gomes MFC, Durovni B, Lemos MC, Saraceni V, Coelho FC, Codeço CT, Zika in Rio de Janeiro: Assessment of basic reproduction number and comparison with dengue outbreaks, Epidemiol Infect 145(8):1649–1657, 2017] for the [Formula: see text] values of Zika virus and dengue virus epidemics in Rio de Janeiro to evaluate the contribution of sexual transmission of Zika virus. According to the obtained results, sexual transmission (pure plus mediated by vector transmission) contributes from 23% to 46% for the [Formula: see text] increment. Also, an asymmetric sexual transmission between men and women can explain the fact that the incidence of Zika virus in women was 60% higher than in man during the 2015 epidemics. We also carry out a sensitivity analysis using [Formula: see text] as the output parameter. The results of this analysis have shown that the transmission rate between human and mosquito populations, the mosquito mortality rate, and the human infectious period are the parameters that contribute more to the [Formula: see text] variation, highlighting the importance of vector control to halt disease transmission.

Sexual behaviour in Kenya: Implications for sexually transmitted disease transmission and control

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1649-1656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Moses ◽  
Esther Muia ◽  
Janet E. Bradley ◽  
Nico J.D. Nagelkerke ◽  
Elizabeth N. Ngugi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Sexually Transmitted Disease ◽  
Transmitted Disease ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
And Control
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