Applying spatial epidemiology to hematological disease using R: a guide for hematologists and oncologists

Abstract

"Spatial statistics" is an academic field that deals with the statistical analysis of spatial data, and has been applied to econometrics and various other policy fields. These methods are easily applied by hematologists and oncologists using better and much less expensive software. To encourage physicians to use these methods, this review introduces the methods and demonstrates the analyses using R and FleXScan, which can be freely downloaded from the website, with sample data. It is demonstrated that spatial analysis can be used by physicians to analyze hematological diseases. In addition, applying the technique presented to the investigation of patient prognoses may enable generation of data that are also useful for solving health policy-related problems, such as the optimal distribution of medical resources.