ReviewEnvironmental health perspectives2004
Spatial epidemiology: current approaches and future challenges.
Review in Environmental health perspectives, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 245 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
245 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Areal Units and Adjacency Used in Bayesian Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Conditional Autoregressive Models in Health Research.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Methods Used in the Spatial and Spatiotemporal Analysis of COVID-19 Epidemiology: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Effectiveness of spatially targeted interventions for control of HIV, tuberculosis, leprosy and malaria: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2021Pooled it
- Geographic and area-level socioeconomic variation in cardiometabolic risk factor distribution: a systematic review of the literature.International journal of health geographics · 2019Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Do socioeconomic inequalities in mortality vary between different Spanish cities? a pooled cross-sectional analysis.BMC public health · 2013Pooled it
- Accuracy of seven GPS-based geolocation techniquesBMJ open · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal trends in tuberculosis incidence in Thailand, 2012-2023: a nationwide, province-level analysis.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2026Article
- Household-level WASH conditions and waterborne diseases among the Vantangiya Scheduled Tribe in India: A micro-scale spatial analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Extreme Ambient Temperature and Differential Risk of Mental Disorder-Related Emergency Department Visit by Disorder, Sex and Age: A Case-Time Series Analysis in Korea.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
- Incorporating polygenic risk scores and social determinants of health across populations: Considerations and best practices in research.American journal of human genetics · 2026Review
- Identification of tuberculosis transmission hotspots in urban China using surveillance data: a machine learning approach based on genomic and spatial analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Analysing Patterns in Electronic Optometry Referrals: Feasibility and Methodology.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Article
- Historical Neighborhood Redlining and Fertility in a Cohort of US Black Women.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic inequalities in severe childhood asthma: results of a nationwide cohort.ERJ open research · 2026Article
- Spatio-temporal analysis of tuberculosis prevalence in Iran.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Racialized economic segregation in relation to fecundability in a preconception cohort study.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal dynamics of waterborne and foodborne disease outbreaks in Brazil: regional inequality analysis and risk area mapping to inform public health strategies.BMC public health · 2026Article
- A Prevention-Focused Geospatial Epidemiology Framework for Identifying Multilevel Vulnerability Across Diverse Settings.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
185 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Spatial epidemiology is the description and analysis of geographic variations in disease with respect to demographic, environmental, behavioral, socioeconomic, genetic, and infectious risk factors. We focus on small-area analyses, encompassing disease mapping, geographic correlation studies, disease clusters, and clustering. Advances in geographic information systems, statistical methodology, and availability of high-resolution, geographically referenced health and environmental quality data have created unprecedented new opportunities to investigate environmental and other factors in explaining local geographic variations in disease. They also present new challenges. Problems include the large random component that may predominate disease rates across small areas. Though this can be dealt with appropriately using Bayesian statistics to provide smooth estimates of disease risks, sensitivity to detect areas at high risk is limited when expected numbers of cases are small. Potential biases and confounding, particularly due to socioeconomic factors, and a detailed understanding of data quality are important. Data errors can result in large apparent disease excess in a locality. Disease cluster reports often arise nonsystematically because of media, physician, or public concern. One ready means of investigating such concerns is the replication of analyses in different areas based on routine data, as is done in the United Kingdom through the Small Area Health Statistics Unit (and increasingly in other European countries, e.g., through the European Health and Environment Information System collaboration). In the future, developments in exposure modeling and mapping, enhanced study designs, and new methods of surveillance of large health databases promise to improve our ability to understand the complex relationships of environment to health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.