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A spatial scan statistic for ordinal data
Journal article   Peer reviewed

A spatial scan statistic for ordinal data

Inkyung Jung, Martin Kulldorff and Ann C Klassen
Statistics in medicine, v 26(7), pp 1594-1607
30 Mar 2007
PMID: 16795130

Abstract

Prostatic Neoplasms - pathology Data Interpretation, Statistical Maryland - epidemiology Disease Outbreaks Epidemiologic Methods Computer Simulation Humans Male Monte Carlo Method Cluster Analysis Prostatic Neoplasms - epidemiology
Spatial scan statistics are widely used for count data to detect geographical disease clusters of high or low incidence, mortality or prevalence and to evaluate their statistical significance. Some data are ordinal or continuous in nature, however, so that it is necessary to dichotomize the data to use a traditional scan statistic for count data. There is then a loss of information and the choice of cut-off point is often arbitrary. In this paper, we propose a spatial scan statistic for ordinal data, which allows us to analyse such data incorporating the ordinal structure without making any further assumptions. The test statistic is based on a likelihood ratio test and evaluated using Monte Carlo hypothesis testing. The proposed method is illustrated using prostate cancer grade and stage data from the Maryland Cancer Registry. The statistical power, sensitivity and positive predicted value of the test are examined through a simulation study.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Medical Informatics
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Statistics & Probability
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