US Public Health Service

GROUP A14 GAURAV SRIVASTAVA HARSHA RAJ NALLASIVAN V. PRAVEEN KUMAR SHAVI GANDHI

Problem Statement
Testing for Syphilis by the US Public Health Service.

Experiment 1: Conduct tests for samples taken from every individual.

Experiment 2: Divide the sample into groups. Pool the blood samples of a group together. Conduct the tests on the pool. If group tests positive, test the individuals of that group. Compare the number of tests required for each

experiment.

Solution
Experiment 1

Let the number of applicants be S. ( ) Number of experiments required (Z1= S).

Experiment 2

Let the group size be n. X: -> R : X is the number of syphilitic persons in a group. p is the probability that a person has syphilis. The experiment is a Bernoulli trial: A person is either syphilitic or not. The number of people in group >> Probability of person having syphilis. Poisson Distribution is applicable.

Calculations
X~ Pois( np)
So, probability that a group has at least one syphilitic person
= P(X>=1) = 1- P(X=0) = 1- exp(-np) Number of tests required = Probability of at least one * no of groups *no of people per group + number of groups Z2= (1-exp(-np))*(S/n)*n + S/n Z2 = S + S/n S.exp(-np) Z2 = S + S/n S( 1 np + (np^2)/2! ..) Z2 = S/n + Snp - S(np)^2 / 2! + Z2<Z1.

Analysis
PS_Case.xlsx

Assumptions for analysis: Probability that a person has syphilis, p = 0.001/0.005 Total number of applicants, s = 100000 + 10000i (i = 1, 2, 3) Number of people in one group, n = 10 + 10j (j = 1, 2, 3)

Conclusion
When the number of people in a group is increased,

the number of experiments first decrease and then increase. This implies that, there is an optimal point, which can be used as the number of people in a group. For p = 0.001 and s= 100000, the optimal number of people in a group is 30.

Thank You
ANY QUESTIONS?