Mapping disease and mortality rates using empirical Bayes estimators.

"Methods for estimating regional mortality and disease rates, with a view to mapping disease, are discussed. A new empirical Bayes estimator, with parameters simply estimated by moments, is proposed and compared with iterative alternatives suggested by Clayton and Kaldor." The author develops a local shrinkage estimator in which a crude disease rate is shrunk toward a local, neighborhood rate. The estimators are compared using simulations and an empirical example based on infant mortality data for Auckland, New Zealand. excerpt