Spatial Temporal Modeling of Health Data
Project 4.4.2
The Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information is an Australian national research centre set up under the federal CRC Program – www.crc.gov.au
This project will further our understanding of disease by applying such spatial temporal models to Australia’s world-class routinely-collected health information.
Objectives
- Identification of geographical inequalities in invasive cancer incidence and survival, and how these spatial patterns have changed over time.
- Identification of how different cancers relate to each other spatially, to service utilization, and to features of interest, e.g. the locations of screening and treatment facilities.
- Modeling of cancer incidence and survival with appropriate covariates to help understand potential causes of the space-time patterns found.
- Development of predictive models of cancer risk and service utilization
- Inform the development of cost-effective strategies for current and future provision of cancer services.
- Improved methods for communicating and visualizing model outputs
The knowledge-based objectives arising from the above include:
- New methodology and algorithms for analyzing, interpreting and predicting spatial and temporal patterns of disease, service utilisation and their potential socio-ecological drivers or identifiers.
- New visualizations of spatial and temporal trends, resources, management and policy strategies, and impact of these strategies.
- New software for implementing the methodology and visualisations
Summary
This project will further our understanding and management of disease through the development and application of new ways of:
- small area disease mapping;
- modeling disease and potential risk factors;
- visualizing the results of these models;
- linking this new information on the spatial and temporal distribution of disease and associated risk factors with health service utilization.
The spatial disparity of diseases is of interest to all health agencies and a priority for the CRCSI Health Program. Research conducted in this project will meet the initial Commonwealth Milestones of the Health Program and be conducted in close collaboration with Project 4.4.1 which will provide the national pathway for visualizing results and enhancing the translation of spatial and temporal models for end-users.