Combined multiplex panel test results are a poor estimate of disease prevalence without adjustment for test error
Fig 2
Error distributions of test results in low pre-test probability settings.
Distribution of false positives (cyan bars, with expected value, E(FP), as a blue vertical line) and false negatives (orange bars, expected value, E(FN), red line) of 1000 hypothetical test results with 0.9975 specificity and 0.8 sensitivity at different prevalence levels. (A), (D) and (G) show the disaggregated distribution of false positives and false negatives and (B), (E) and (H) show the combined error distribution of test positive observations (grey bars), and expected test positivity (magenta line, E(Test pos)) compared to the true condition positives (black line). (C) shows numerically the parameters plotted in (A) and (B); (F) relates to (D) and (E); and (I) to (G) and (H).