Efficient Sample Size Calculator
Deployed
The Efficient Sample Size Calculator simulates the sample size needed to declare a population free-from-disease while explicitly accounting for the natural clustering behavior of hosts. The Calculator can be used to plan investigations using simple random sampling, high-harvest, or two-stage cluster sampling designs.
Geographical Scale
- Population size of interest, regardless of the spatial scale
User Inputs
- Population of interest
- Average cluster size of hosts
- Whether clusters are fixed or variable in size
- Correlation in disease status among hosts sharing a cluster
- Sensitivity of the diagnostic test used to declare CWD-positive
Outputs
- The number of hosts that need to be tested without finding a positive case to have high probability (95%) that disease prevalence in the overall population is at or below 1% or 2%.

More Information
For more information, go to the CWD Data Warehouse User Manual: Efficient Sample Size Calculator.
Code
To view the code, go to the GitHub Repository: Efficient Sample Size Calculator.
Citations
- Booth JG, Hanley BJ, Hodel FH, Jennelle CS, Guinness J, Them CE, Mitchell CI, Ahmed MS, Schuler KL. 2024. Sample size for estimating disease prevalence in free-ranging wildlife populations: A Bayesian modeling approach. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences. 29, 438–454.
- Booth JG, Hanley BJ, Thompson NE, Gonzalez-Crespo C, Christensen SA, Jennelle CS, Caudell JN, Delisle Z, Guinness J, Hollingshead NA, Them CT, Schuler KL. Management agencies can leverage animal social structure for wildlife disease surveillance. Journal of Wildlife Diseases.
- Hanley BJ, JG Booth, FH Hodel, NE Thompson, AA Reeder, JCG Bloodgood, JP Dion, Van de Berg S, Gonzalez-Crespo C, Huang Y, Wang J, Miller LA, Hollingshead NA, Peaslee JL, Schuler KL. 2025. Efficient sample size calculator [Software]. Cornell University Library eCommons.