Detection of clusters of a rare disease over a large territory: performance of cluster detection methods

Goujon-Bellec, Stéphanie; Demoury, Claire; Guyot-Goubin, Aurélie; Hémon, Denis; Clavel, Jacqueline

doi:10.1186/1476-072X-10-53

International Journal of Health Geographics

Table 6 Average sensitivity, PPV and cost of cluster detection methods

From: Detection of clusters of a rare disease over a large territory: performance of cluster detection methods

		"Small Clusters"¹			"Moderate Clusters"¹			"Large Clusters"¹
		#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6	#7	#8	#9
		Linear	U-Shaped	Compact	Linear	U-Shaped	Compact	Linear	U-Shaped	Compact
		6 LZ	10 LZ	8 LZ	7 LZ	7 LZ	11 LZ	12 LZ	16 LZ	13 LZ
Average sensitivity
RR = 1.5	Scan-c							0.52	0.40	0.68
	Scan-e0							0.52	0.38	0.61
	FleX							0.43	0.35	0.49
	GA-1							0.37	0.30	0.47
	Double							0.42	0.31	0.39
	Mlink							0.49	0.38	0.46
RR = 2.0	Scan-c				0.49	0.63	0.81	0.59	0.49	0.82
	Scan-e0				0.64	0.46	0.75	0.71	0.45	0.78
	FleX				0.57	0.68	0.64	0.50	0.43	0.64
	GA-1				0.54	0.54	0.78	0.45	0.35	0.60
	Double				0.48	0.48	0.63	0.50	0.37	0.51
	Mlink				0.50	0.54	0.69	0.58	0.46	0.57
RR = 3.0	Scan-c	0.48	0.43	0.79	0.51	0.75	0.93	0.63	0.54	0.90
	Scan-e0	0.82	0.18	0.82	0.85	0.50	0.92	0.89	0.49	0.88
	FleX	0.68	0.70	0.82	0.69	0.86	0.78	0.61	0.51	0.75
	GA-1	0.65	0.60	0.73	0.53	0.57	0.86	0.57	0.39	0.70
	Double	0.43	0.39	0.81	0.52	0.57	0.79	0.60	0.44	0.59
	Mlink	0.44	0.44	0.66	0.55	0.63	0.81	0.66	0.49	0.62
Average PPV
RR = 1.5	Scan-c							0.46	0.50	0.69
	Scan-e0							0.40	0.39	0.53
	FleX							0.45	0.49	0.57
	GA-1							0.47	0.52	0.58
	Double							0.54	0.54	0.62
	Mlink							0.43	0.46	0.51
RR = 2.0	Scan-c				0.39	0.46	0.81	0.57	0.57	0.84
	Scan-e0				0.47	0.33	0.65	0.61	0.52	0.73
	FleX				0.45	0.49	0.67	0.57	0.61	0.74
	GA-1				0.42	0.41	0.77	0.68	0.69	0.76
	Double				0.56	0.55	0.77	0.70	0.67	0.80
	Mlink				0.50	0.51	0.75	0.63	0.59	0.74
RR = 3.0	Scan-c	0.51	0.68	0.73	0.43	0.59	0.90	0.68	0.63	0.92
	Scan-e0	0.73	0.25	0.73	0.73	0.44	0.90	0.73	0.53	0.89
	FleX	0.57	0.76	0.77	0.65	0.70	0.83	0.75	0.79	0.88
	GA-1	0.55	0.79	0.82	0.52	0.55	0.89	0.88	0.86	0.86
	Double	0.72	0.73	0.88	0.70	0.73	0.92	0.85	0.81	0.89
	Mlink	0.65	0.66	0.80	0.68	0.72	0.91	0.82	0.70	0.91
Average cost
RR = 1.5	Scan-c							14.00	16.70	8.60
	Scan-e0							15.50	19.80	12.50
	FleX							13.20	16.20	11.30
	GA-1							13.30	16.10	11.40
	Double							11.60	15.60	11.40
	Mlink							14.40	17.40	13.60
RR = 2.0	Scan-c				10.30	8.40	4.80	11.10	14.60	4.80
	Scan-e0				9.20	11.70	8.10	9.30	16.00	6.90
	FleX				8.30	7.40	7.60	10.70	13.60	7.70
	GA-1				9.20	9.50	5.30	9.60	13.40	7.70
	Double				7.00	6.90	6.60	9.10	13.40	8.40
	Mlink				8.50	8.00	6.60	10.10	14.80	9.10
RR = 3.0	Scan-c	8.00	9.10	4.50	9.10	5.70	2.10	8.70	12.70	2.40
	Scan-e0	3.60	13.80	4.60	3.70	8.50	2.30	5.50	15.40	3.10
	FleX	5.50	5.50	3.80	5.20	3.80	4.30	7.20	10.10	4.70
	GA-1	6.00	6.10	3.70	7.20	6.60	2.90	6.20	11.00	5.50
	Double	5.10	8.10	2.80	5.20	4.60	3.30	6.40	11.00	6.40
	Mlink	5.90	9.10	4.80	5.30	4.60	3.20	6.40	12.60	6.10

Scan-c: circular scan method, Scan-e 0: standard elliptic scan method, FleX: unrestricted flexible scan method, GA-1: strongly penalized genetic algorithm, Double and Mlink: dynamic minimum spanning tree method with double and maximum link connections, respectively. Results based on 250 Monte Carlo replications. ¹ "small", "moderate" and "large" clusters are clusters with about 20, 45 and 115 cases of childhood acute leukemia over the period 1990-2006, respectively.

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ISSN: 1476-072X

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