title: Feasibility of contour mapping epidemiological data with missing values.
abstract: Data of epidemiologic interest often occur as spatial information during each of several time periods. In most cases data are available from a set of regions or localities which can be viewed as points in a plane. Although contour mapping is useful for displaying these data, the lack of data for all data points in a region may lead to erroneous interpretation. In this paper we use stimulation to investigate the impact of missing data points for contour mapping using two distinct simulated spatial-time distributions for epidemiologic variables. A model for the occurrence of malaria in localities randomly distributed in one region is chosen as the prototype for data generation.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Engenharia Biomédica, Coordenacão dos Programas de Pós-graduação em Engenharia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, COPPE/UFRJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: F F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Nobre
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: de Macedo
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008288:Malaria / Q000453:epidemiology; D008377:Maps as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D013269:Stochastic Processes