Effect of spatial resolution on cluster detection: a simulation study.
BACKGROUND
Aggregation of spatial data is intended to protect privacy, but some effects of aggregation on spatial methods have not yet been quantified.


METHODS
We generated 3,000 spatial data sets and evaluated power of detection at 12 different levels of aggregation using the spatial scan statistic implemented in SaTScan v6.0.


RESULTS
Power to detect clusters decreased from nearly 100% when using exact locations to roughly 40% at the coarsest level of spatial resolution.


CONCLUSIONS
Aggregation has the potential for obfuscation.
Ozonoff
Al
A
Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. aozonoff@bu.edu
Jeffery
Caroline
C
Manjourides
Justin
J
White
Laura Forsberg
LF
Pagano
Marcello
M
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003219:Confidentiality; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D013029:Space-Time Clustering; D019371:Topography, Medical / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*