Attack rate-patient number plot for analysis of food poisonings caused by microbes and plant or animal toxins.

Attack rate-patient number plot for analysis of food poisonings caused by microbes and plant or animal toxins. Jpn J Infect Dis. 2019 Apr 26;: Authors: Yoshikura H Abstract The number of eaters and that of patients per outbreak followed lognormal distribution in food poisonings caused by microbes while it followed scale-free distribution in food poisoning caused by plant or animal toxins. Attack rates of the individual outbreaks were distributed continuously and almost linearly from >0 to 1 for all the food poisonings, i.e., they could not be represented by median and standard deviation. For monitoring of the number of patients and the attack rate in individual outbreaks simultaneously, the number of patients was plotted in the x-axis in the logarithmic scale against the attack rate in the y-axis in the normal scale. There emerged plots characterized by repeating arcs assuming shape of a butterfly with extended wings viewed from above, which was called "backbone configuration". The butterfly-shaped plot patterns were generally stable over time, but variable depending on pathogens, implicated facilities and their combinations. The backbone configuration was reproduced by assuming that the number of patients per outbreak was distributed continuously from 1 to the number of eaters per outbreak. PMID: 31061357 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Tags: Jpn J Infect Dis Source Type: research