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Measures of chronic degenerative disease diffusion, such as incidence and prevalence rates, are a basic need for epidemiologists and others working in many fields of human sciences. Equations relating death probabilities to incidence and survival probabilities for chronic degenerative diseases are derived from a cohort point of view. A maximum likelihood approach is adopted for the estimation of incidence as a function of time related covariates. When time series of mortality data are available, the model can be used to describe and analyse levels and dynamics of morbidity. A trial application to lung and breast cancer is given for the province of Varese, Italy, where incidence data are available from the Lombardy Cancer Register.
Verdecchia et al. (Wed,) studied this question.