Disease mapping of zero-excessive mesothelioma data in Flanders

Purpose: To investigate the distribution of mesothelioma in Flanders using Bayesian disease mapping models that account for both an excess of zeros and overdispersion. Methods: The numbers of newly diagnosed mesothelioma cases within all Flemish municipalities between 1999 and 2008 were obtained from the Belgian Cancer Registry. To deal with overdispersion, zero inflation, and geographical association, the hurdle combined model was proposed, which has three components: a Bernoulli zero-inflation mixture component to account for excess zeros, a gamma random effect to adjust for overdispersion,... Mehr ...