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A Point Process Modelling Approach to Raised Incidence of a Rare Phenomenon in the Vicinity of a Prespecified Point
Author(s) -
Diggle Peter J.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of the royal statistical society: series a (statistics in society)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.103
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-985X
pISSN - 0964-1998
DOI - 10.2307/2982977
Subject(s) - phenomenon , point (geometry) , incidence (geometry) , rare events , process (computing) , point process , medicine , mathematics , computer science , statistics , physics , geometry , quantum mechanics , operating system
SUMMARY Motivated by the current debate on possible raised incidence of certain types of cancers near nuclear installations, this paper develops a methodology for fitting a class of inhomogeneous Poisson point process models to data consisting of the locations of all occurrences of some phenomenon of interest within a designated planar region. The model is based on a multiplicative decomposition of the intensity function, with separate terms to describe natural spatial variation in intensity and possible raised incidence around a prespecified point. A nonparametric kernel smoothing approach, based on data from a related phenomenon, is used to describe natural spatial variation, while a parametric maximum likelihood approach is used to describe raised incidence near the prespecified point. The methodology is applied to data on the spatial distribution of cancers of the larynx and of the lung in the Chorley‐Ribble area of Lancashire, England.