Estimation of odds ratio from group testing data with misclassified exposure

Abstract

For low prevalence disease, we consider estimation of the odds ratio for two specified groups of individuals using group testing data. Broadly the two groups may be classified as “the exposed” and “the unexposed.” Often in observational studies, the exposure status is not correctly recorded. In addition, diagnostic tests are rarely completely accurate. The proposed model accounts for imperfect sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests along with the misclassification in the exposure status. For model identifiability, we make use of internal validation data, where a subsample of reasonably small size is selected from the original sample by simple random sampling without replacement. Pseudo-maximum likelihood method is employed for the estimation of the model parameters. The performance of group testing methodology is compared with individual testing for different parametric configurations. A limited data study related to COVID-19 prevalence is performed to illustrate the methodology.