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How does a 14% false alarm rate make it useless? If it fails to turn positive for actual infection, I agree. But my understanding is its 114% positive, meaning
by geuis 12y ago
How does a 14% false alarm rate make it useless? If it fails to turn positive for actual infection, I agree. But my understanding is its 114% positive, meaning if you have an infection its 100% positive and 14% positive when you aren't infected. Subsequent tests weed out the false positives.
Out of 1000 people, say 100 are actually infected with syphilis. With 14% positive error rate, 140 would test positive. It's much better to only need the expensive 2nd test for 40 people rather than 1000.
- llamataboot 12y agoYou are thinking about this wrong, what it actually means is that 14% of the time, it will detect positive. So say out of 1000 people, 1 is infected with syphilis. That person will tests positive, but so will 140 other people that don't have syphilis. So the test just referred 141 people to consultations and further testing, only 1 of which actually has the disease.