title: Prediction models in small area estimation.
abstract: Finite population estimation problems are formulated as prediction problems under superpopulation models. For linear regression models, a general theorem on optimal linear estimation is presented. The theorem is applied to simple cross-classification models to generate and analyze various statistics for estimating small area totals. These statistics include the synthetic and composite estimators, as well as some interesting alternatives.
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011159:Population Surveillance; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*