Random Change-Point Non-linear Mixed Effects Model for left-censored longitudinal data: An application to HIV surveillance.

Abstract

A change-point model is essential in longitudinal data to infer an individual specific time to an event that induces a change of trend. However, in general, change points are not known for population-based data. We present an unknown change-point model that fits the linear and non-linear mixed effects for pre- and post-change points. We address the left-censored observations. Through stochastic approximation expectation maximization (SAEM) with the Metropolis Hasting sampler, we fit a random change-point non-linear mixed effects model. We apply our method on the longitudinal viral load (VL) data reported to the HIV surveillance registry from New York City.