Detecting space–time patterns of disease risk under dynamic background population

Abstract

We are able to collect vast quantities of spatiotemporal data due to recent technological advances. Exploratory space–time data analysis approaches can facilitate the detection of patterns and formation of hypotheses about their driving processes. However, geographic patterns of social phenomena like crime or disease are driven by the underlying population. This research aims for incorporating temporal population dynamics into spatial analysis, a key omission of previous methods. As population data are becoming available at finer spatial and temporal granularity, we are increasingly able to capture the dynamic patterns of human activity. In this paper, we modify the space–time kernel density estimation method by accounting for spatially and temporally dynamic background populations (ST-DB), assess the benefits of considering the temporal dimension and finally, compare ST-DB to its purely spatial counterpart. We delineate clusters and compare them, as well as their significance, across multiple parameter configurations. We apply ST-DB to an outbreak of dengue fever in Cali, Colombia during 2010–2011. Our results show that incorporating the temporal dimension improves our ability to delineate significant clusters. This study addresses an urgent need in the spatiotemporal analysis literature by using population data at high spatial and temporal resolutions.