A Multilevel Regression Model for Geographical Studies in Sets of Non-Adjacent Cities.

ABSTRACT: In recent years, small-area-based ecological regression analyses have been published that study the association between a health outcome and a covariate in several cities. These analyses have usually been performed independently for each city and have therefore yielded unrelated estimates for the cities considered, even though the same process has been studied in all of them. In this study, we propose a joint ecological regression model for multiple cities that accounts for spatial structure both within and between cities and explore the advantages of this model. The proposed model merges both disease mapping and geostatistical ideas. Our proposal is compared with two alternatives, one that models the association for each city as fixed effects and another that treats them as independent an

SUBMITTER: Mari-Dell'Olmo M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4550405 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature