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Activity Number: 138 - Digging into Models: Statistical Theory Inspired by Environmental Applications
Type: Invited
Date/Time: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 : 10:00 AM to 11:50 AM
Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
Abstract #308154
Title: Change-Set Analysis and Related Asymptotics with Application to Spatial Clustering in Environmental Health
Author(s): Jun Zhu* and Pei-Sheng Lin
Companies: University of Wisconsin and National Health Research Institutes
Keywords: estimating equations; non-proximity cluster; quasi-likelihood estimation; spatial lattice; spatial statistics
Abstract:

Mapping of disease incidence is of importance to environmental health. In this talk, we consider identification of clusters of spatial units with elevated disease rates and develop a new approach that estimates the relative disease risk in association with potential environmental risk factors and simultaneously identifies clusters corresponding to elevated risks. A heterogeneity measure is proposed to enable the comparison of a candidate cluster and its complement under a pair of complementary models. A quasi-likelihood procedure is developed for estimating the model parameters and identifying the clusters. An advantage of our approach over traditional spatial clustering methods is the identification of clusters that can have arbitrary shapes due to abrupt or non-contiguous changes while accounting for risk factors and spatial correlation. Asymptotic properties of the proposed methodology are established and a simulation study shows empirically sound finite-sample properties. The mapping and clustering of enterovirus 71 infection in Taiwan are carried out for illustration.


Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

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