BACKGROUND Analytic methods commonly used in epidemiology do not account for spatial correlation between observations. In regression analyses, omission of that autocorrelation can bias parameter estimates and yield incorrect standard error estimates. METHODS We used age standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) of esophageal cancer (EC) from the Babol cancer registry from 2001 to 2005, and extract...

In a spatial regression context, scientists are often interested in a physical interpretation of components of the parametric covariance function. For example, spatial covariance parameter estimates in ecological settings have been interpreted to describe spatial heterogeneity or “patchiness” in a landscape that cannot be explained by measured covariates. In this article, we investigate the inf...