Relative risk estimation of hepatitis B and C in Peninsular Malaysia using Poisson-Gamma model

Abstract

Disease mapping has been a very useful tool in epidemiology as it shows a visual representation of disease outcomes across geographical regions. This paper uses the traditional approach known as Standardized Morbidity Ratio (SMR) for the estimation of relative risk of both Hepatitis B and C. However, an extreme result possibly arises especially if the condition of expectation is close to zero. To overcome this drawbacks, an alternative method known as Empirical Bayes approach specifically Poisson-Gamma model will be used as a smoothing method towards SMR for the relative risk estimation. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relative risk for Hepatitis B and C in Peninsular Malaysia using both the traditional method and the Empirical Bayes framework. The Poisson-Gamma model is expected to provide a smoother and better estimation of relative risk compared to the traditional method.