Zero inflated statistical count models for analysing the costs imposed by GERD and dyspepsia

ABSTRACT

Background and study aims: Recent studies have shown that the high prevalence and the various clinical presentations of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease [GERD] and dyspepsia impose an enormous economic burden on society. Economic cost data have unique characteristics they are counts, and they have zero inflation. Therefore, these data require special models. Poisson regression [PR], negative binomial regression [NB], zero inflated Poisson [ZIP] and zero inflated negative binomial [ZINB] regression are the models used for analysing cost data in this paper