13). For some pathogens, subdivisions into categories by serotype, patient age, or clinical manifestations of interest were included because transmission pathways were assumed to be different. For example, for
Salmonella, the 5 most common serotypes were included along with 2 groups of rarer serotypes based on a ranking of their coefficients of variation (CVs) calculated from the patients’ ages, sexes, states of residence, and the year and month specimens were obtained (group 1, lowest CVs; group 2, highest CVs) as described by Boore et al. (
14). This compilation resulted in a total of 33 pathogens and 47 target questions, or categories, for estimation. The 47 target questions were grouped into 15 panels on the basis of similarities between pathogen microbiology and ecology (Table 1).