A space-time conditional intensity model for invasive meningococcal disease occurrence 1/2

A novel point process model continuous in space-time is proposed
for quantifying the transmission dynamics of the two most common
meningococcal antigenic sequence types observed in Germany
2002-2008. Modelling is based on the conditional intensity function
(CIF) which is described by a superposition of additive and
multiplicative components. As an epidemiological interesting
finding, spread behaviour was shown to depend on type in addition
to age: basic reproduction numbers were 0.25 (95% CI 0.19-0.34) and
0.11 (95% CI 0.07-0.17) for types B:P1.7-2,4:F1-5 and
C:P1.5,2:F3-3, respectively. Altogether, the proposed methodology
represents a comprehensive and universal regression framework for
the modelling, simulation and inference of self-exciting
spatio-temporal point processes based on the CIF. Usability of the
modelling in biometric practice is promoted by an implementation in
the R package surveillance.