Prasad Patil, Xiaojing Peng, Beth M Haley, Keith R Spangler, Koen F Tieskens, Kevin J Lane, Fei Carnes, M Patricia Fabian, R Monina Klevens, T Scott Troppy, Jessica H Leibler, Jonathan I Levy
PURPOSE: When studying health risks across a large geographic region such as a state or province, researchers often assume that finer resolution data on health outcomes and risk factors will improve inferences by avoiding ecological bias and other issues associated with geographic aggregation. However, coarser resolution data (e.g., at the town or county level) are more commonly publicly available and packaged for easier access, allowing for rapid analyses. The advantages and limitations of using finer resolution data, which may improve precision at the cost of time spent gaining access and processing data, have not been considered in detail to date...
February 21, 2023: Annals of Epidemiology