The spatial evaluation of neighborhood clusters of birth defects

Technical Report · Mon Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 1990

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6519537· OSTI ID:6519537

Frisch, J D

Spatial statistics have recently been applied in epidemiology to evaluate clusters of cancer and birth defects. Their use requires a comparison population, drawn from the population at risk for disease, that may not always be readily available. In this dissertation the plausibility of using data on all birth defects, available from birth defects registries, as a surrogate for the spatial distribution of all live births in the analysis of clusters is assessed. Three spatial statistics that have been applied in epidemiologic investigations of clusters, nearest neighbor distance, average interpoint distance, and average distance to a fixed point, were evaluated by computer simulation for their properties in a unit square, and in a zip code region. Comparison of spatial distributions of live births and birth defects was performed by drawing samples of live births and birth defects from Santa Clara County, determining the street address at birth, geocoding this address and evaluating the resultant maps using various statistical techniques. The proposed method was then demonstrated on a previously confirmed cluster of oral cleft cases. All live births for the neighborhood were geocoded, as were all birth defects. Evaluation of this cluster using the nearest neighbor and average interpoint distance statistics was performed using randomization techniques with both the live births population and the birth defect population as comparison groups. 113 refs., 36 figs., 16 tabs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/ER
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 6519537
• Report Number(s): LBL-29384; ON: DE91001796
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
CONGENITAL DISEASES
EPIDEMIOLOGY
COMPUTER PROGRAM DOCUMENTATION
CONGENITAL MALFORMATIONS
EQUATIONS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NEOPLASMS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
STATISTICS
DISEASES
DISTRIBUTION
MALFORMATIONS
MATHEMATICS
PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES
550900* - Pathology
552000 - Public Health