Hidden variable models reveal the effects of infection from changes in host survival

• Published in: PLoS computational biology Vol. 19; no. 2; p. e1010910
• Main Authors: Ferguson, Jake M, González-González, Andrea, Kaiser, Johnathan A, Winzer, Sara M, Anast, Justin M, Ridenhour, Ben, Miura, Tanya A, Parent, Christine E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 22-02-2023; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Analysis; Animals; Animals, Wild; Biology and Life Sciences; Disease; Disease Outbreaks - veterinary; Drosophila; Drosophila melanogaster; Earth Sciences; Epidemic models; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Food; Hidden variables (Quantum mechanics); Host-parasite relationships; Identification and classification; Infections; Infectious diseases; Insects; Longitudinal studies; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mortality; Pathogens; Phoca; Population growth; Population studies; Populations; Prevalence; Public health; Random variables; Research and Analysis Methods; Seals; Stranding; Survival; Viral infections; Viruses; Wildlife; United States
• ISSN: 1553-7358; 1553-734X; 1553-7358
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010910

The impacts of disease on host vital rates can be demonstrated using longitudinal studies, but these studies can be expensive and logistically challenging. We examined the utility of hidden variable models to infer the individual effects of infectious disease from population-level measurements of survival when longitudinal studies are not possible. Our approach seeks to explain temporal deviations in population-level survival after introducing a disease causative agent when disease prevalence cannot be directly measured by coupling survival and epidemiological models. We tested this approach using an experimental host system (Drosophila melanogaster) with multiple distinct pathogens to validate the ability of the hidden variable model to infer per-capita disease rates. We then applied the approach to a disease outbreak in harbor seals (Phoca vituline) that had data on observed strandings but no epidemiological data. We found that our hidden variable modeling approach could successfully detect the per-capita effects of disease from monitored survival rates in both the experimental and wild populations. Our approach may prove useful for detecting epidemics from public health data in regions where standard surveillance techniques are not available and in the study of epidemics in wildlife populations, where longitudinal studies can be especially difficult to implement.