Back to browse results
Influence of Demographic and Health Survey Point Displacements on Distance-Based Analyses
Authors: Joshua L Warren, Carolina Perez-Heydrich, Clara R Burgert, and Michael E Emch
Source: Spatial Demography , Published online; doi:10.1007/s40980-015-0014-0
Topic(s): GIS/GPS
Country: Africa
  Multiple African Countries
Published: JUN 2015
Abstract: We evaluate the impacts of random spatial displacements on analyses that involve distance measures from displaced Demographic and Health Survey clusters to nearest ancillary point or line features, such as health resources or roads. We use simulation and case studies to address the effects of this introduced error, and propose use of regression calibration (RC) to reduce its impact. Results suggest that RC outperforms analyses involving naive distance-based covariate assignments by reducing the bias and MSE of the main estimator in most settings. Proposed guidelines also address the effect of the spatial density of destination features on observed bias.