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The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)

The choices that researchers make while conducting a statistical analysis usually have a notable impact on the results. This fact has become evident in the ongoing research of the association between the environment and the evolution of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, in light of t...

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Autor principal: Briz-Redón, Álvaro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7778699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33424434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00477-020-01965-z
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author Briz-Redón, Álvaro
author_facet Briz-Redón, Álvaro
author_sort Briz-Redón, Álvaro
collection PubMed
description The choices that researchers make while conducting a statistical analysis usually have a notable impact on the results. This fact has become evident in the ongoing research of the association between the environment and the evolution of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, in light of the hundreds of contradictory studies that have already been published on this issue in just a few months. In this paper, a COVID-19 dataset containing the number of daily cases registered in the regions of Catalonia (Spain) since the start of the pandemic to the end of August 2020 is analysed using statistical models of diverse levels of complexity. Specifically, the possible effect of several environmental variables (solar exposure, mean temperature, and wind speed) on the number of cases is assessed. Thus, the first objective of the paper is to show how the choice of a certain type of statistical model to conduct the analysis can have a severe impact on the associations that are inferred between the covariates and the response variable. Secondly, it is shown how the use of spatio-temporal models accounting for the nature of the data allows understanding the evolution of the pandemic in space and time. The results suggest that even though the models fitted to the data correctly capture the evolution of COVID-19 in space and time, determining whether there is an association between the spread of the pandemic and certain environmental conditions is complex, as it is severely affected by the choice of the model.
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spelling pubmed-77786992021-01-04 The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain) Briz-Redón, Álvaro Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess Original Paper The choices that researchers make while conducting a statistical analysis usually have a notable impact on the results. This fact has become evident in the ongoing research of the association between the environment and the evolution of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, in light of the hundreds of contradictory studies that have already been published on this issue in just a few months. In this paper, a COVID-19 dataset containing the number of daily cases registered in the regions of Catalonia (Spain) since the start of the pandemic to the end of August 2020 is analysed using statistical models of diverse levels of complexity. Specifically, the possible effect of several environmental variables (solar exposure, mean temperature, and wind speed) on the number of cases is assessed. Thus, the first objective of the paper is to show how the choice of a certain type of statistical model to conduct the analysis can have a severe impact on the associations that are inferred between the covariates and the response variable. Secondly, it is shown how the use of spatio-temporal models accounting for the nature of the data allows understanding the evolution of the pandemic in space and time. The results suggest that even though the models fitted to the data correctly capture the evolution of COVID-19 in space and time, determining whether there is an association between the spread of the pandemic and certain environmental conditions is complex, as it is severely affected by the choice of the model. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-01-03 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7778699/ /pubmed/33424434 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00477-020-01965-z Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Briz-Redón, Álvaro
The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title_full The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title_fullStr The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title_full_unstemmed The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title_short The impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between COVID-19 spread and environmental conditions in Catalonia (Spain)
title_sort impact of modelling choices on modelling outcomes: a spatio-temporal study of the association between covid-19 spread and environmental conditions in catalonia (spain)
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7778699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33424434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00477-020-01965-z
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