title: Area-to-Area Poisson Kriging analysis of mapping of county- level esophageal cancer incidence rates in Iran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Esophagus cancer, the third most common gastrointestinal cancer overall, demonstrates high incidence in parts of Iran. The counties of Iran vary in size, shape and population size. The aim of this study was to account for spatial support with Area-to-Area (ATA) Poisson Kriging to increase precision of parameter estimates and yield correct variance and create maps of disease rates.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study involved application/ecology methodology, illustrated using esophagus cancer data recorded by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (in the Non-infectious Diseases Management Center) of Iran. The analysis focused on the 336 counties over the years 2003-2007. ATA was used for estimating the parameters of the map with SpaceStat and ArcGIS9.3 software for analysing the data and drawing maps.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Northern counties of Iran have high risk estimation. The ATA Poisson Kriging approach yielded variance increase in large sparsely populated counties. So, central counties had the most prediction variance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ATAPoisson kriging approach is recommended for estimating parameters of disease mapping since this method accounts for spatial support and patterns in irregular spatial areas. The results demonstrate that the counties in provinces Ardebil, Mazandaran and Kordestan have higher risk than other counties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, School of Paramedicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Naeimeh Sadat
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Asmarian
authors.forename: Ahmad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruzitalab
authors.forename: Kavousi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Amir
authors.forename: Salehi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Masoud
authors.forename: Behzad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mahaki
mesh_terms: D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D062206:Spatial Analysis