Sensitivity analyses
In sensitivity analyses, we found using absence duration did not improve
model predictions. One-day absence models and those including both
one-day and absences two-days or more had lower relMAEs compared to
models containing absences two-days or more (Supplemental Table 9), but
predictions from the three model did not substantially vary
(Supplemental Figure 2). Evaluation of models including one-week lagged
influenza cases found little improvement of model prediction and
performance when compared to seasonal models. Higher MAEs were observed
for one-week lagged influenza models, and one-week lagged influenza and
absence models but had similar R2 estimates
(Supplemental Table 8). One exception was the one-week lagged influenza
model from the leave 20% schools’ out validation, which had a lower
relMAE (relMAE: 0.97) (Supplemental Table 8). One-week lagged influenza
and one-week lagged influenza and kindergarten absence models performed
similarly to one-week lagged influenza models in three
cross-validations, except in the leave 52-weeks out validation (relMAE:
0.97).