Application of capture-recapture methods for disease monitoring: potential effects of imperfect record linkage

Capture-recapture methods are increasingly employed to correct for underascertainment of cases in disease monitoring. Routine systems of disease monitoring, such as morbidity registries, are often prone to specific threats of validity, such as in imperfect diagnoses or imperfect record linkage. A quantitative assessment is given of the performance of the two-source capture-recapture method for disease monitoring in the presence of imperfect record linkage. The capture-recapture approach can eliminate underestimation of the number of eligible cases, which is typical for most disease monitoring systems, under certain conditions, including independence of sources of case ascertainment and perfect record linkage. Correction for underestimation remains less than perfect, however, in the case of false-positive matches, whereas application of capture-recapture methods leads to overestimation of case numbers in the presence of false-negative matches. A simple correction procedure to overcome potential overestimation by false-negative matches is outlined.