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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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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7778699 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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