silemus.

52Bayes with a probability tree

A test for a disease is 95% sensitive and 90% specific. 1% of the population has the disease. A person tests positive. Find P(disease)\displaystyle P(\text{disease}).

The tree splits first on disease (1%/99%), then each branch splits on test result using sensitivity/specificity. Multiplying along branches gives P(Disease∩+)=0.0095 and P(No disease∩+)=0.099; dividing the first by their sum gives P(Disease|+) ≈ 0.0876, about 8.8%.

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