st: New package: Waiting Time Distribution

[Henrik Stovring <hstovring@health.sdu.dk>]

Dear statalist,

Thanks to Kit Baum, a new package called 'wtd' can now be downloaded
from the SSC archives. To install just type:
	
	ssc install wtd

There is an accompanying pair of files which gives examples of how to 
use the package - to get these type:

	net get wtd

The package is useful for parametric likelihood estimation of prevalence 
and incidence based on occurrence of health-related events in a time 
window. The method explicitly avoids to use information on health or 
treatment status outside the time window, but instead it exclusively 
exploits the information available from start of the time window to 
first event - the so-called waiting time. The associated distribution 
has a distinct two-compononent shape consisting of an initially rapidly 
declining component corresponding to those in active treatment at start 
of the time window, and a more or less constant component corresponding 
to treatment initiation.

The methods are particularly useful in pharmaco-epidemiology, but also 
in general research on use of health services the package is intended to 
be useful. For a more detailed description, please refer to the enclosed 
help files (help wtd), which also contains further references.

Please let me know if you find bugs or have suggestions for improvements.

Best,

Henrik

--
Henrik St�vring, PhD

Research Unit of General Practice
University of Southern Denmark
Winsl�wparken 19, 3
DK-5000 Odense C
Phone: (+45) 6550 3692
Fax: (+45) 6591 8296
email: hstovring@health.sdu.dk
Homepage: http://www.biostat.sdu.dk/~stovring
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