title: [Bayesian analysis of ecological studies].
abstract: Studying the space-time variation of risk for a given disease may give etiological clues and suggestions for planning further studies to investigate the underlying causes. When the observed events are rare, approaches based on maximum likelihood may lead to unstable and largely uninformative estimates of risk and of its time trend due to Poisson sampling variation. In this paper we propose a general Bayesian model for analyzing the variation of risk in space and time. We applied the Bayesian model to the analysis of the geographical variation of breast cancer mortality, to an ecological study on the correlation between lung cancer mortality and degree of urbanization and industrialization and to the analysis of the space-time variation of cumulative prevalence of Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) as observed in military examinations between 1954 and 1989.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Scienze Sanitarie Applicate, Università degli Studi di Pavia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bernardinelli
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Montomoli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghislandi
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pascutto
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000453:epidemiology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D008889:Military Personnel; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012424:Rural Population; D014505:Urban Population; D014507:Urbanization
vernacular_title: Analisi bayesiana di studi ecologici.