Ebola question has resolved

The question, What West African country will be third to detect the Ebola Virus in 2014 after Guinea and Liberia? has resolved as Sierra Leone, with a Brier score of 0.87, slightly better than baseline 0.93. For more information, view this post on the CDC web site.

Analysis of the Predictions

The Brier Score for a uniform distribution forecast “UBS” was 0.93. The Brier Score was 0.87.

The Brier Score (Brier 1950) is a measurement of the accuracy of probabilistic predictions. As a distance metric, a lower score is better than a higher score.  The market Brier Score ranges from 0 to 2, and is the sum of the squared differences between the individual forecasts and the outcome weighted by how long the forecasts were on the market. On a binary (Yes/No) question, simply guessing 50% all the time yields a “no courage” score of 0.5.

There were 17 forecasts made by 3 unique users.

There were 5 participants’ comments. Here are a couple:

Looks like it was Sierra Leone: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/05/27/5-dead-in-sierra-leone-first-ebola-outbreak-as-disease-continues-to-spread/

 

A definition of a West African country has been added to the fine print section of the background. “None of the above” is included as an answer choice as to cover the case where Ebola does not spread to any other West African country in 2014. 

 

Check out this related forecasting question that is still active on the market.

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1. The Ordered Brier is officially known as RPS.
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One thought on “Ebola question has resolved

  1. ctwardy

    So.. not many forecasts, and it hadn’t moved much off the uniform distribution for most of its life, but Sierra Leone was in the slightly-favored group.

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