Development and Evaluation of Spatial Survival Models

描述(申请人提供)：前列腺癌是最常见的男性恶性肿瘤，也是美国男性癌症死亡的主要原因。确诊后存活率存在较大的地域差异和种族差异。我们将开发新的和灵活的空间生存模型的统计方法来估计癌症的生存。我们将应用建议的方法来分析路易斯安那州监测、流行病学和最终结果计划中的前列腺癌数据，以及南卡罗来纳州中央癌症登记处的前列腺癌数据。我们将使用这一分析来调查路易斯安那州和南卡罗来纳州前列腺癌的空间模式和种族差异。我们将进行一项完整的模拟研究，比较现有空间生存模型的性能，帮助参与癌症研究的从业者或研究人员选择合适的空间生存模型。建议的方法可能会在未来扩展到包括更复杂的情况，如分组和时间变化，在流行病学癌症研究中。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in men and a leading cause of cancer mortality among males in the United States. Large geographical variation and racial disparities exist in its survival rate after diagnosis. We will develop new and 0exible statistical methods of spatial survival model to estimate cancer survival. We will apply the proposed method to analyze the prostate cancer data within Louisiana from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program and within South Carolina from the South Carolina Central Cancer Registry. We will use this analysis to investigate the spatial patterns and racial disparities of prostate cancer in Louisiana and South Carolina. We will conduct a complete simulation study to compare the performances of existing spatial survival models, and it can help the practitioners or researchers involved in cancer studies to select the right spatial survival model. The proposed method may possibly be extended to include more complex situations in the future, such as groupings and time variations, in epidemiological cancer study.