title: Identifying pediatric cancer clusters in Florida using loglinear models and generalized lasso penalties.
abstract: We discuss the identification of pediatric cancer clusters in Florida between 2000 and 2010 using a penalized generalized linear model. More specifically, we introduce a Poisson model for the observed number of cases on each of Florida's ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA) and regularize the associated disease rate estimates using a generalized Lasso penalty. Our analysis suggests the presence of a number of pediatric cancer clusters during the period over study, with the largest ones being located around the cities of Jacksonville, Miami, Cape Coral/Fort Meyers and Palm Beach.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Michigan State University, 909 Fee Road Room B601, East Lansing, Michigan 48824; Ph: (517) 353-8623 ext.169, URL: http://www.epi.msu.edu/faculty/wang.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Mailstop SOE2, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064; Ph.: (831) 459-1047, , URL: http://soe.ucsc.edu/abel.
authors.forename: Abel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodríguez
keywords: Disease Clustering; Generalized Lasso; Loglinear Models; Pediatric Cancer; Poisson Regression