Use of closed population models to estimate the number of injection drug users in Victoria, B.C.

Date

2011-06-07

Authors

Xu, Yuan
Cowen, Laura L.E.

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Abstract

Closed mark-recapture experiments are widely used to estimate population size even though the assumption of "closed population"' is often violated (immigrations and emigrations) compared to open population models. This work investigates various methods in closed population models (Petersen estimator, maximum likelihood estimation with mixtures, and Huggins model) to estimate the number of injection drug users (IDU) in Victoria, B.C. Model selection methods used to choose a final model as well as goodness-of-fit options are discussed. We use data from the 2003 and 2005's I-Track survey program to compare these estimators.

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Keywords

Capture-recapture, Closed populations, Lincoln-Petersen estimator, Huggins model, Mixture distribution, Injection drug user

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