# prior probability

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Related to prior probability: joint probability, conditional probability, Bayes theorem

## pri·or prob·a·bil·i·ty

the best rational assessment of the probability of an outcome on the basis of established knowledge before the present experiment is performed. For instance, the prior probability of the daughter of a carrier of hemophilia being herself a carrier of hemophilia is 1/2. But if the daughter already has an affected son, the posterior probability that she is a carrier is unity, whereas if she has a normal child, the posterior probability that she is a carrier is 1/3. See: Bayes theorem.

## prevalence

Epidemiology
(1) The number of people with a specific condition or attribute at a specified time divided by the total number of people in the population.
(2) The number or proportion of cases, events or conditions in a given population.

Statistics
A term defined in the context of a 4-cell diagnostic matrix (2 X 2 table) as the amount of people with a disease, X, relative to a population.

Veterinary medicine
(1) A clinical estimate of the probability that an animal has a given disease, based on current knowledge (e.g., by history of physical exam) before diagnostic testing.
(2) As defined in a population, the probability at a specific point in time that an animal randomly selected from a group will have a particular condition, which is equivalent to the proportion of individuals in the group that have the disease. Group prevalence is calculated by dividing the number of individuals in a group that have a disease by the total number of individuals in the group at risk of the disease. Prevalence is a good measure of the amount of a chronic, low-mortality disease in a population, but is not of the amount of short duration or high-fatality disease. Prevalence is often established by cross-sectional surveys.

## prior probability

Decision making The likelihood that something may occur or be associated with an event based on its prevalence in a particular situation. See Medical mistake, Representative heurisic.

## prior probability,

n the extent of belief held by a patient and practitioner in the ability of a specific therapeutic approach to produce a positive outcome before treatment begins. This level of belief should be taken into consideration by the patient and practitioner to make a decision as to whether the treatment should be used or to permit the therapy to continue.

## probability

the basis of statistics. The relative frequency of occurrence of a specific event as the outcome of an experiment when the experiment is conducted randomly on very many occasions. The probability of the event occurring is the number of times it did occur divided by the number of times that it could have occurred. Defined as:$$\hbox{p}={\hbox{x}\over (\hbox{x+y})$$

where
p = probability, x = positive outcomes, y = negative outcomes.
prior probability
estimation of the probability that a particular phenomenon or character will appear before putting the patient to the test, e.g. testing the probable productivity of a patient by testing its forebears.
subjective probability
the measure of the assessor's belief in the probability of a proposition being correct.
References in periodicals archive ?
U[right arrow]T], as the product of the presumed contribution index CIU_T and the prior probability of U.
Note that the initial reputation for such an equilibrium to exist is quite high: the prior probability of a good manager is over 0.
Naturalism can be modified so as to be equal in explanatory power, but only by making it more complicated and so lowering its prior probability.
Therefore, the prior probability density function for [v.
Furthermore, we demonstrate how a decision tree can combine and extend the ROC and cost analysis methods to provide an expected cost metric that reflects the intrusion detection system's ROC curve, cost metrics, and an assessment of the hostility of the environment as summarized in the prior probability of intrusion.
The prior probability of active/not active is not a property of an individual chemical; it is the relative frequency of active/not active in a population of chemicals.
The second term, [mu](m), is the prior probability assigned to model m.
In addition, with respect to other information, it is essential to remember that the posterior probability--and clinical value--of a given test result is highly contingent on the clinical situation and the prior probability (11).
The probability in equation (7) is called the one period-ahead prior probability because it is not conditional on the recession outcome at time t.
Doubling the prior probability to 18% in British Columbia would result in 5762 fewer heterophile antibody and complete blood count with differential tests, 144 fewer false-positive IM diagnoses, and (using the algorithm generated by Tsaparas et al) 47 fewer sets of viral serology tests.

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