US Public Health Service

Section B, Group 6 Probability & Statistics

Problem Statement
The U.S. army subjected each prospective inductee to a blood test that detected syphilitic antigen. Number of analyses required = Number of persons examined However, syphilitic antigen can be detected at great levels of dilution also.

Problem Statement Contd.

So, statisticians proposed an alternate solution
Club the individual blood sera into groups Test the sera for a group as a whole, instead of individuals If a group s blood sera tests positive for the antigen, each member of the group would be retested.

Probability Analysis
Let p = probability that a random selection would yield an infected individual Let N = Total people to be examined Let n = size of group for testing blood sera Number of groups thus formed = N/n Let X = Number of people infected in a group of size n.

Probability Analysis Contd.

The binomial probablity of obtaining zero infected persons in a group of n is P(X=0) = (1 p)n Probability of atleast one person being infected in a group of n is P(X>0) = 1 P(X=0) = 1 (1 p)n Let Y = Number of groups tested positive, i.e. the number of failures in (N/n) trials

Probability Analysis Contd.

As Y is a binomial random variable, E(Y) = Number of trials Probability that a group tests positive = (N/n) Probability of at least one infected = (N/n)[1 (1 p)n] The number of chemical analyses required by the grouping procedure = Number of groups + n(Number of groups that test positive) = N/n + n(N/n)[1 (1 p)n]

Probability Analysis Contd.

Ratio of number of tests required now to those required originally (N) = 1/n + 1 (1 p)n = (n+1)/n (1 p)n This ratio can now be used to determine whether the proposed grouping technique requires lesser number of chemical analyses than the existing procedure If ratio < 1 for all values of p then the new technique is better

Excel Analysis
For various values of p ranging from 0.01 to 0.5, the ratio of tests required currently to those required originally were plotted The group sizes were varied from 2 to 20, to check the optimal group size The graph thus obtained is demonstrated on the next slide

Graph
1.4 1.2

p = 0.35 p = 0.3 p = 0.25

Relative Ratio

p = 0.2
0.8

p = 0.15 p = 0.1 p = 0.06 p = 0.05 p = 0.03 p = 0.02

0.2

0.6

0.4

p = 0.01

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Group Size

Analyzing Results
From the graph we can notice that for p 0.15 and group size varying from 2 to 20, the relative ratio is < 1 But, if more than 15% of people are syphilitic, and the number of people in each group is large, then the original method of testing is preferable As the prevalence of syphilitis increases, more individuals may be re-tested thereby worsening the relative ratio

Efficient Group Sizes for p < 0.3

p 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.3 Optimum Size of Group (Graph Minima) 11 8 6 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 Relative Ratio 0.195 0.274 0.333 0.383 0.426 0.466 0.502 0.533 0.564 0.593 0.719 0.821 0.990

Conclusion
The proposed technique will require lesser number of chemical analyses if prevelance of infection is less than 15% The efficient group size gradually decreases from 11 for p = 0.01 to 3 for p = 0.3.