ArticleSpatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology2012
A research agenda: does geocoding positional error matter in health GIS studies?
Article in Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed.
- Accuracy of seven GPS-based geolocation techniquesBMJ open · 2026Article
- Built Environment Portends Poor Outcomes for Hip Arthroscopy Patients at 2-Year Follow-up.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Why it's so hard to match residence addresses to census blocks - and how to fix it.Transactions in GIS : TG · 2026Article
- Where, when, and how to close dialysis access gaps: incorporation of geographic information system into data-driven planning : A commentary.Israel journal of health policy research · 2025Article
- The effect of conflict on damage to medical facilities in Mariupol, Ukraine: A quasi-experimental study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Capturing emergency dispatch address points as geocoding candidates to quantify delimited confidence in residential geolocation.International journal of health geographics · 2023Article
- Beyond Usual Geographical Scales of Analysis: Implications for Healthcare Management and Urban Planning.Portuguese journal of public health · 2023Article
- Geocoding processes in cohort studies: methods applied in the EpiFloripa Aging.Revista de saude publica · 2023Article
- Remotely sensed measures of Hurricane Michael damage and adverse perinatal outcomes and access to prenatal care services in the Florida panhandle.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2022Article
- Ensemble Models for Tick Vectors: Standard Surveys Compared with Convenience Samples.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Split and combine simulation extrapolation algorithm to correct geocoding coarsening of built environment exposures.Statistics in medicine · 2022Article
- Area-Based Geocoding: An Approach to Exposure Assessment Incorporating Positional Uncertainty.GeoHealth · 2021Article
- Strengthening data collection for neglected tropical diseases: What data are needed for models to better inform tailored intervention programmes?PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Spatial Heterogeneity in Positional Errors: A Comparison of Two Residential Geocoding Efforts in the Agricultural Health Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Associations between residential greenness and self-reported heart disease in Sri Lankan men: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2021Article
- Geographic monitoring for early disease detection (GeoMEDD).Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Geocoding Error, Spatial Uncertainty, and Implications for Exposure Assessment and Environmental Epidemiology.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- The availability of retail tobacco near federally qualified healthcare facilities and addiction treatment centers in New York State.Preventive medicine reports · 2020Article
- Spatiotemporal analysis of drug-resistant TB patients registered in selected districts of Karnataka, South India: a cross-sectional study.Tropical medicine and health · 2020Article
- Incorporating a location-based socioeconomic index into a de-identified i2b2 clinical data warehouse.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2019Article
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Abstract
Until recently, little attention has been paid to geocoding positional accuracy and its impacts on accessibility measures; estimates of disease rates; findings of disease clustering; spatial prediction and modeling of health outcomes; and estimates of individual exposures based on geographic proximity to pollutant and pathogen sources. It is now clear that positional errors can result in flawed findings and poor public health decisions. Yet the current state-of-practice is to ignore geocoding positional uncertainty, primarily because of a lack of theory, methods and tools for quantifying, modeling, and adjusting for geocoding positional errors in health analysis. This paper proposes a research agenda to address this need. It summarizes the basics of the geocoding process, its assumptions, and empirical evidence describing the magnitude of geocoding positional error. An overview of the impacts of positional error in health analysis, including accessibility, disease clustering, exposure reconstruction, and spatial weights estimation is presented. The proposed research agenda addresses five key needs: (1) a lack of standardized, open-access geocoding resources for use in health research; (2) a lack of geocoding validation datasets that will allow the evaluation of alternative geocoding engines and procedures; (3) a lack of spatially explicit geocoding positional error models; (4) a lack of resources for assessing the sensitivity of spatial analysis results to geocoding positional error; (5) a lack of demonstration studies that illustrate the sensitivity of health policy decisions to geocoding positional error.
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