Skip to content

PriorGen: An R package that generates prior distributions for proportions

1 message · Polychronis KOSTOULAS

#
Dear Colleagues,

PriorGen is an R package that generates priors in the form of beta and
Gamma distributions got proportions. You may find it useful for the
generation of priors on the sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic tests and
the prevalence of disease.

The findbeta function estimates the parameters of a Beta distribution based
on the existing prior beliefs about the mean (or the median or the mode)
and whether it is lower or greater that a certain value with a
pre-speci?ed certainty (usually set at 95%).

The findbetaqq function estimates the parameters of a Beta distribution
based on the existing prior beliefs about the values of two distinct
percentiles.

The findbetamupsi function estimates:

? 1.? the parameters of a Beta distribution for the expected mean of a
proportion -usually the prevalence of disease/infection.
? 2.? the parameters of a Gamma distribution expressing our prior belief
about the variability (?) of the prevalence estimates across the units of
the area/region under consideration.

You may download it from here: https://cran.r-project.org/package=PriorGen

Hope you find it helpful and, of course, any comments/suggestions are most
welcome.

Polychronis

To cite package ?PriorGen? in publications use:

? Polychronis Kostoulas (2018). PriorGen: Generates Prior Distributions
? for Proportions. R package version 1.1.2.
? https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=PriorGen

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

? @Manual{,
??? title = {PriorGen: Generates Prior Distributions for Proportions},
??? author = {Polychronis Kostoulas},
??? year = {2018},
??? note = {R package version 1.1.2},
??? url = {https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=PriorGen},
? }