title: Analyzing the evolution of young people's brain cancer mortality in Spanish provinces.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of brain cancer relative mortality risks in young population (under 20 years of age) in Spanish provinces during the period 1986-2010.
  
  
  METHODS
  A new and flexible conditional autoregressive spatio-temporal model with two levels of spatial aggregation was used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Brain cancer relative mortality risks in young population in Spanish provinces decreased during the last years, although a clear increase was observed during the 1990s. The global geographical pattern emphasized a high relative mortality risk in Navarre and a low relative mortality risk in Madrid. Although there is a specific Autonomous Region-time interaction effect on the relative mortality risks this effect is weak in the final estimates when compared to the global spatial and temporal effects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Differences in mortality between regions and over time may be caused by the increase in survival rates, the differences in treatment or the availability of diagnostic tools. The increase in relative risks observed in the 1990s was probably due to improved diagnostics with computerized axial tomography and magnetic resonance imaging techniques.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and O.R., Public University of Navarre, Spain; Institute for Advanced Materials (INAMAT), Public University of Navarre, Spain. Electronic address: lola@unavarra.es.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Ugarte
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and O.R., Public University of Navarre, Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Adin
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and O.R., Public University of Navarre, Spain; Institute for Advanced Materials (INAMAT), Public University of Navarre, Spain; Research Network on Health Services in Chronic Diseases (REDISSEC), Spain.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Goicoa
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Cancer Epidemiology Unit, National Centre for Epidemiology, Carlos III Institute of Health, Spain; Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública - CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: López-Abente
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis; D012306:Risk; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology; D015996:Survival Rate; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Brain cancer; Disease mapping; INLA; Spatio-temporal trends; Two-level CAR models