Natalie Schibell, MPH, Pippa Hodgkins, and Abby Case
Prevalence and incidence (P&I) are essential epidemiologic measures that shape regulatory decisions, market access strategies, and public health policies. These metrics inform drug development, treatment utilization, and healthcare resource allocation. However, accurately estimating P&I using real-world data (RWD) presents complexities.
Traditional epidemiologic methods assume complete data capture and stable patient populations, but real-world healthcare data is often fragmented, inconsistent, and subject to variations in treatment patterns. Without scientifically rigorous adjustments, prevalence and incidence estimates may misrepresent disease burden, misclassify cases, or overstate treatment uptake—ultimately impacting regulatory and payer decisions.
Aetion® Discover is designed to solve these complexities by enabling rapid, interactive disease burden assessments through a visual-first, exploratory analytics platform.
The nuances of measuring prevalence and incidence in real-world settings have been well-documented. In 2018, Aetion co-founders Jeremy Rassen, ScD, Sebastian Schneeweiss, MD, ScD, and colleagues published a key publication that highlighted how study design choices—such as lookback periods, cohort selection, and data observability—significantly impact epidemiologic estimates.
Building on this foundation, Aetion Discover integrates validated epidemiologic methodologies into a scalable, interactive analytics framework, allowing researchers to refine real-world disease burden estimates confidently.
P&I estimation, now available in Aetion Discover, allows researchers to dynamically assess real-world disease trends with an interactive, exploratory approach.
A biopharma company evaluating real-world asthma prevalence can use Discover to instantly compare rates across different patient demographics and datasets, identifying emerging trends—without requiring custom analytics pipelines.
Discover’s real-time calculations, interactive dashboards, and multi-dataset compatibility make it an ideal tool for early-stage epidemiologic research, allowing organizations to validate hypotheses before transitioning into structured, decision-grade analyses in Aetion® Substantiate.
Prevalence and incidence analytics in Discover align with scientifically validated epidemiologic principles, ensuring exploratory disease burden estimates remain credible and actionable.
With its interactive, visual-first platform, Discover transforms real-world epidemiology into a scalable, efficient framework for refining disease burden estimates and generating early-stage insights.
Feature |
Aetion Discover |
Aetion Substantiate |
Primary Function |
Exploratory disease burden analytics |
Structured, decision-grade epidemiologic estimation |
Core Use Cases |
Rapid hypothesis generation, real-world trend analysis, population characterization |
Regulatory submissions, health technology assessments (HTAs), payer negotiations |
Analytical Approach |
Interactive, visual-first, designed for rapid insights |
Methodologically rigorous, validated for decision-making |
Key Capabilities |
Automated prevalence & incidence calculations, interactive dashboards, dynamic cohort selection |
Structured person-time adjustments, customizable washout periods, longitudinal tracking |
Ideal for |
Researchers, epidemiologists, public health analysts |
Regulatory agencies, payers, HTA bodies |
Organizations that leverage Discover for rapid hypothesis testing and Substantiate for validated regulatory analysis gain both the speed needed for exploratory research and the scientific rigor required for decision-grade epidemiologic insights.
Clinical development teams require quick exploratory insights to inform clinical trial feasibility and design, patient segmentation, and early hypothesis validation. Discover enables:
Payers and HEOR analysts rely on initial disease burden estimates to inform preliminary budget-impact analyses, value assessments, and market access strategies. Discover provides:
Public health analysts require dynamic exploratory tools to quickly identify emerging disease trends and disparities. Discover offers:
With Aetion Discover, decision-makers access fast, transparent, and scientifically rigorous real-world epidemiologic insights, ensuring a stronger foundation for evidence-based healthcare strategies.
Prevalence and incidence estimation must evolve to keep pace with real-world healthcare complexity. Organizations need a solution that combines scientific rigor with flexibility, power, and intuitive design.
Aetion Discover provides a scalable, interactive framework for exploratory epidemiologic research, ensuring organizations move from hypothesis to insight faster—without sacrificing scientific integrity.
See how Aetion Discover transforms real-world disease burden analytics. Schedule a consultation today.