[Statistical analysis for count data: use of healthcare services applications].

Análisis estadístico para datos de conteo: aplicaciones para el uso de los servicios de salud.

Publisher: Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública Country of Publication: Mexico NLM ID: 0404371 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1606-7916 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00363634 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Salud Publica Mex Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: Mexico : Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública
Original Publication: [México] : La Secretaría, [1959-

Models, Statistical*; Health Services/*statistics & numerical data; Mexico ; Regression Analysis

Objective: To describe some of the statistical models for the study of count variables in the context of the use of health services.
Material and Methods: We used the Seguro Popular Evaluation Survey to estimate the effect of Seguro Popular on the frequency of use of outpatient health services, using Poisson regression models and negative binomial, zero-inflated negative binomial and the hurdle negative binomial models. We used the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) to define the best model.
Results: Results show that the best statistical approach to model the use of health services is the hurdle model, taking into account both the main theoretical assumptions and the statistical results of the AIC.
Discussion: The modelling of count data requires the application of statistical models to model data dispersion; in the presence of an excess of zeros, the hurdle model is an appropriate statistical option.

Date Created: 20091126 Date Completed: 20100303 Latest Revision: 20191027

20250114

10.1590/s0036-36342009000500007

19936553