Global, local and focused geographic clustering for case-control data with residential histories.

ABSTRACT:

Background

This paper introduces a new approach for evaluating clustering in case-control data that accounts for residential histories. Although many statistics have been proposed for assessing local, focused and global clustering in health outcomes, few, if any, exist for evaluating clusters when individuals are mobile.

Methods

Local, global and focused tests for residential histories are developed based on sets of matrices of nearest neighbor relationships that reflect the changing topology of cases and controls. Exposure traces are defined that account for the latency between exposure and disease manifestation, and that use exposure windows whose duration may vary. Several of the methods so derived are applied to evaluate clustering of residential histories in a case-cont

SUBMITTER: Jacquez GM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1083418 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature