Spatiotemporal Hotspots Analysis for Exploring the Evolution of Diseases: An Application to Oto-Laryngopharyngeal Diseases

Abstract

This paper presents a spatiotemporal analysis of hotspot areas based on the Extended Fuzzy C-Means method implemented in a geographic information system. This method has been adapted for detecting spatial areas with high concentrations of events and tested to study their temporal evolution. The data consist of georeferenced patterns corresponding to the residence of patients in the district of Naples (Italy) to whom a surgical intervention to the oto-laryngopharyngeal apparatus was carried out between the years 2008 and 2012.