A log-Weibull spatial scan statistic for time to event data

BACKGROUND: Spatial scan statistics have been used for the identification of geographic clusters of elevated numbers of cases of a condition such as disease outbreaks. These statistics accompanied by the appropriate distribution can also identify geographic areas with either longer or shorter time to events. Other authors have proposed the spatial scan statistics based on the exponential and Weibull distributions. RESULTS: We propose the log-Weibull as an alternative distribution for the spatial scan statistic for time to events data and compare and contrast the log-Weibull and Weibull distributions through simulation studies. The effect of type I differential censoring and power have been investigated through simulated data. Methods are also illustrated on time to specialist visit data for discharged patients presenting to emergency departments for atrial fibrillation and flutter in Alberta during 2010–2011. We found northern regions of Alberta had longer times to specialist visit than other areas. CONCLUSIONS: We proposed the spatial scan statistic for the log-Weibull distribution as a new approach for detecting spatial clusters for time to event data. The simulation studies suggest that the test performs well for log-Weibull data.