Question

What is the probability that a random person who tests positive for a certain blood disease actually has the disease, if we know that 1% of the population has the disease, that 95% of those who have the disease test positive for it, and 2% of those who do not have the disease test positive for it.

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

Hello!

Any medical test used to detect certain sicknesses have several probabilities associated with their results.

Positive (test is +) ⇒ P(+)

True positive (test is + and the patient is sick) ⇒ P(+ ∩ S)

False-positive (test is + but the patient is healthy) ⇒P(+ ∩ H)

Negative (test is -) ⇒ P(-)

True negative (test is - and the patient is healthy) ⇒ P(- ∩ H)

False-negative (test is - but the patient is sick) ⇒ P(- ∩ S)

The sensibility of the test is defined as the capacity of the test to detect the sickness in sick patients (true  positive rate).

⇒ P(+/S) = P(+ ∩ S)  

                    P(S)

The specificity of the test is the capacity of the test to have a negative result when the patients are truly  healthy (true negative rate)

⇒ P(-/H) = P(- ∩ H)  

                   P(H)

For this particular blood disease the following probabilities are known:

1% of the population has the disease: P(S)= 0.01

95% of those who are sick, test positive for it: P(+/S)= 0.95 (sensibility of the test)

2% of those who don't have the disease, test positive for it: P(+/H)= 0.02

The probability of a person having the blood sickness given that the test was positive is:

P(S/+)= P(+ ∩ S)  

                P(+)

The first step you need to calculate the intersection between both events + and S, for that you will use the information about the sickness prevalence in the population and the sensibility of the test:

P(+/S) = P(+ ∩ S)

                 P(S)

P(+/S)* P(S)  = P(+ ∩ S)  

P(+ ∩ S) = 0.95*0.01= 0.0095

The second step is to calculate the probability of the test being positive:

P(+)=  P(+ ∩ S) +  P(+ ∩ H)

Now we know that 1% of the population has the blood sickness, wich means that 99% of the population doesn't have it, symbolically: P(H)= 0.99

Then you can clear the value of P(+ ∩ H):

P(+/H) = P(+ ∩ H)

                 P(H)

P(+/H)*P(H)  = P(+ ∩ H)

P(+ ∩ H) = 0.02*0.99= 0.0198

Next you can calculate P(+):

P(+)=  P(+ ∩ S) +  P(+ ∩ H)= 0.0095 + 0.0198= 0.0293

Now you can calculate the asked probability:

P(S/+)= P(+ ∩ S)   = 0.0095 = 0.32

                P(+)        0.0293

I hope it helps!