BIVARIATE BINOMIAL SPATIAL MODELLING LOA loa PREVALENCE IN TROPICAL AFRICA

Ciprian M. Crainiceanu, Johns Hokins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Biostatistics
Peter J. Diggle, Department of Mathematics and Statistics Fylde College, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Barry Rowlingson, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

Abstract

We present a state-of-the-art application of smoothing for dependent bivariate binomial spatial data to Loa loa prevalence mapping in West Africa. This application is special because it starts with the non-spatial calibration of survey instruments, continues with the spatial model building and assessment and ends with robust, tested software that will be used by the field scientists of the World Health Organization for online prevalence map updating. From a statistical perspective several important methodological issues were addressed: (a) building spatial models that are complex enough to capture the structure of the data but remain computationally usable; (b)reducing the computational burden in the handling of very large covariate data sets; (c) devising methods for comparing spatial prediction methods for a given exceedance policy threshold.