Rates

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Confidence interval for a Poisson rate or count
Compare two crude rates
Standardize and compare two rates
Direct standardization
Indirect standardization

This section constructs confidence intervals, tests and standardization methods for event rates such as disease incidence or mortality rates.

For uncommon events, the Poisson distribution is usually appropriate, and most of the methods in this section use exact approaches to the Poisson distribution.

For common events, specifically were the event rate r can not be considered small in comparison with 1-r, you should use binomial distribution methods. The direct standardization and comparison of standardized rates functions give you alternative binomial results. For a single large rate you can use the single proportion method as an alternative to the Poisson rate or count method above. For the comparison of two large rates you can use the prospective risk function as an alternative to the comparison of two crude rates given above.