Calculation of the mean duration and age of onset of a chronic disease and application to dementia in Germany

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new differential equation-based method to estimate the mean duration and age of onset of chronic diseases using incidence and mortality data, demonstrated with dementia in Germany.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel mathematical approach for estimating disease duration and onset age from epidemiological data, applicable to various chronic diseases.

Findings

Method successfully applied to dementia data in Germany

Provides accurate estimates of disease duration and age of onset

Offers a practical tool for epidemiological analysis

Abstract

This paper descibes a new method of calculating the mean duration and mean age of onset of a chronic disease from incidence and mortality rates. It is based on an ordinary differential equation resulting from a simple compartment model. Applicability of the method is demonstrated in data about dementia in Germany.