Comparison of different approaches to incidence prediction based on simple interpolation techniques.

The paper compares three different methods for performing disease incidence prediction based on simple interpolation techniques. The first method assumes that the age-period specific numbers of observed cases follow a Poisson distribution and the other two methods assume a normal distribution for the incidence rates. The main emphasis of the paper is on assessing the reliability of the three methods. For this purpose, ex post predictions produced by each method are checked for different cancer sites using data from the Cancer Control Region of Turku in Finland. In addition, the behaviour of the estimators of predicted expected values and prediction intervals, crucial for investigation of the reliability of prediction, are assessed using a simulation study. The prediction method making use of the Poisson assumption appeared to be the most reliable of the three approaches. The simulation study found that the estimator of the length of the prediction interval produced by this method has the smallest coverage error and is the most precise. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.