Missing in space: an evaluation of imputation methods for missing data in spatial analysis of risk factors for type II diabetes

BACKGROUND: Spatial analysis is increasingly important for identifying modifiable geographic risk factors for disease. However, spatial health data from surveys are often incomplete, ranging from missing data for only a few variables, to missing data for many variables. For spatial analyses of health outcomes, selection of an appropriate imputation method is critical in order to produce the most accurate inferences. METHODS: We present a cross-validation approach to select between three imputation methods for health survey data with correlated lifestyle covariates, using as a case study, type II diabetes mellitus (DM II) risk across 71 Queensland Local Government Areas (LGAs). We compare the accuracy of mean imputation to imputation using multivariate normal and conditional autoregressive prior distributions. RESULTS: Choice of imputation method depends upon the application and is not necessarily the most complex method. Mean imputation was selected as the most accurate method in this application. CONCLUSIONS: Selecting an appropriate imputation method for health survey data, after accounting for spatial correlation and correlation between covariates, allows more complete analysis of geographic risk factors for disease with more confidence in the results to inform public policy decision-making. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1476-072X-13-47) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.