Computation of age-specific hiv incidence estimates using the em algorithm

The fitting of age-dependent HIV incidence models to AIDS data is a computationally intensive task, particularly when allowance is made for non-proportional dependence of the infection rate on age. This paper presents a computational alternative to a very intensive method described by Rosenberg (1994). Our approach is to use the EM algorithm on a discretized form of the model used by Rosenberg (1994). The EM approach has certain attractive features including ease of implementation and flexibility of model specification. It also conveniently generalizes to allow smoothed estimation and less detailed forms of age-specific AIDS data.