Bayesian Spatial Change of Support for Count-Valued Survey Data With Application to the American Community Survey

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bradley, Jonathan R.; Wikle, Christopher K.; Holan, Scott H.
• 署名单位: University of Missouri System; University of Missouri Columbia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0162-1459
• DOI: 10.1080/01621459.2015.1117471
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 472-487
• 关键词: filtering specification; posterior

摘要

We introduce Bayesian spatial change of support (COS) methodology for count-valued survey data with known survey variances. Our proposed methodology is motivated by the American Community Survey (ACS), an ongoing survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau that provides timely information on several key demographic variables. Specifically, the ACS produces 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year period-estimates, and corresponding margins of errors, for published demographic and socio-economic variables recorded over predefined geographies within the United States. Despite the availability of these predefined geographies, it is often of interest to data-users to specify customized user-defined spatial supports. In particular, it is useful to estimate demographic variables defined on new spatial supports in real-timef This problem is,known as spatial COS, which is typically performed under the assumption that the data follow a Gaussian distribution. However, count-valued survey data is naturally non-Gaussian and, hence, we consider modeling these data using a Poisson distribution. Additionally, survey-data are often accompanied by estimates of error, which we incorporate into our analysis. We interpret Poisson count-valued data in small areas as an, aggregation of events from a spatial point process. This approach provides us with the flexibility necessary to allow ACS users to consider a variety of spatial supports in real-time. We show the effectiveness of our approach through a simulated example as well as through an analysis using public-use ACS data.