Abstract
AbstractProviding a geographical map for rates of mortality, incidence, or prevalence of various diseases is of great importance for national health authorities. The relative risks are used to uncover the rate of incidence for different diseases. In the classical approach, the relative risk is often estimated under the assumption of independence between geographical areas. However, this assumption is not always substantiated in field studies, particularly in the case of health variables which may be strongly correlated due to common risk factors for adjacent areas. Such a dependence which is a function of distance between sample sites is called spatial correlation. In this paper, we account for such a dependence in evaluating the relative risk. This is undertaken by employing a hierarchical Bayesian approach. The proposed method is illustrated by a real example of lip cancer in Iran. The estimated relative risks and their standard errors (SEs) are computed. The distributional map of the disease and its SE are provided. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
