BU SBRP researchers Dr. Veronica Vieira (Project 2), Dr. Tom Webster (Project 2), and Dr. Ann Aschengrau (Project 1) recently published a paper titled “Spatial-temporal analysis of breast cancer in upper Cape Cod, Massachusetts” in the International Journal of Health Geographics. In this paper the researchers examined the association between participants' residential history during 1947-1993 and the risk of breast cancer diagnosis during 1983-1993 using generalized additive models (GAMs). The models included a two-dimensional space only analysis, one-dimensional time analyses for the earliest year study participants lived in the study area and the residency duration, a two-dimensional time-only analysis, and a two dimensional analysis for space and time.
The results of these analyses showed a number of statistically significant relationships between time, space, and the development of breast cancer. These results show that GAM methods are a suitable alternative to widely-used cluster detection methods and may be preferable when residential histories from existing epidemiological studies are available.
The International Journal of Health Geographics is an Open Access Journal, so a full copy of this article is available for free online.
