Simulation analysis of an adjusted gravity model for hospital admissions robust to incomplete data.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
Gravity models are often hard to apply in practice due to their data-hungry nature. Standard implementations of gravity models require that data on each variable is available for each supply node. Since these model types are often applied in a competitive context, data availability of specific variables is commonly limited to a subset of supply nodes.Methods
This paper introduces a methodology that accommodates the use of variables for which data availability is incomplete, developed for a health care context, but more broadly applicable. The study uses simulated data to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology in comparison with a conventional approach of dropping variables from the model.Results
It is shown that the proposed methodology is able to improve overall model accuracy compared to dropping variables from the model, and that model accuracy is considerably improved within the subset of supply nodes for which data is available, even when that availability is sparse.Conclusion
The proposed methodology is a viable approach to improve the performance of gravity models in a competitive health care context, where data availability is limited, and especially where a the supply nodes with complete data are most relevant for the practitioner.
SUBMITTER: Latruwe T
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10540423 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Simulation analysis of an adjusted gravity model for hospital admissions robust to incomplete data.
Latruwe Timo T Van der Wee Marlies M Vanleenhove Pieter P Michielsen Kwinten K Verbrugge Sofie S Colle Didier D
BMC medical research methodology 20230929 1
<h4>Background</h4>Gravity models are often hard to apply in practice due to their data-hungry nature. Standard implementations of gravity models require that data on each variable is available for each supply node. Since these model types are often applied in a competitive context, data availability of specific variables is commonly limited to a subset of supply nodes.<h4>Methods</h4>This paper introduces a methodology that accommodates the use of variables for which data availability is incomp ...[more]
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