Veterinary epidemiology: spatial analysis software

Recent advances in computing power and data collection have transformed the potential for spatial analysis. A number of programs are available for this analysis:

• Arc-SDM (Spatial Data Modeller for Arcview includes procedures for weights of evidence, logistic regression, fuzzy logic and neural network analysis. Two or more evidential themes can be combined using these methods to generate a response theme) http://www.ige.unicamp.br/sdm/default_e.htm

• Christine (GIS viewer system; display, query, summarize, and organize data geographically) http://www.christine-gis.com/en/index.htm

• CrimeStat (Spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations; calculates various descriptive statistics, measures of spatial clustering, k-function, kernel smoothing; can write output in ArcView format) http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/CrimeStat/

• DISMap (Mapping of disease data such as rates or ratios like SMR´s; Analysis of unobserved heterogeneity using mixture models; offers Poisson regression approach for linking disease and exposure data) http://dismap.sourceforge.net/

• GeoDa (Exploratory spatial analysis tool) http://geodacenter.asu.edu/

• GRASS GIS (Geographical information system (GIS) software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization) http://grass.fbk.eu/

• GraspeR (General method for making spatial predictions of variable of interest using point surveys of the variable of interest and spatial coverages of important environmental factors) http://www.unine.ch/cscf/grasp/grasp-r/index.html

• Hawth’s Analysis Tools for ArcGIS (Analysis tools written within the context of the ecological applications (movement analysis, resource selection, predator prey interactions and trophic cascades)) http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/

• QGIS (Geographic information system (GIS) software for the visualisation, management, editing and analysis of data) http://www.qgis.org/

• SatScan (Analyzes spatial, temporal and space-time point and area data using the spatial, temporal, or space-time scan statistic) http://www.satscan.org/

• SPLANCS (Spatial point pattern analysis code for R and SPlus) http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings/Splancs/

• vLATE (Vector-based Landscape Analysis Tools Extension) http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geoprocessing/details?entryID=B8B0FD1A-1422-2418-A0CA-7A5D58532F74