How to Smooth Your Data

Choose "Smoothing > Empirical Bayesian Smoother" from the Methods menu. For SpaceStat to smooth your data, it needs be given a disease rate and a population dataset. You also specify the time(s), the spatial weights set to use, and how to name the results datasets.

Click within the sections in the images below for more information.

Input

The task manager for the Empirical Bayesian Smoother opens with the Input page.  Note that the smoother requires a spatial weights set that includes ego in the weights, and only weight sets that meet this criterion will appear in the Spatial Weights set pull down menu.  If you choose to define a spatial weight set from this window, the "Includes ego as a neighbor" will be checked by default.  The "units multiplier" box  for smoothing refers to whether the disease rate incorporates a population multiplier. For the NCI cancer mortality data, the rate is for 100,000 person-years, so the "units multiplier" is by default set at 100,000.

Review settings

The run method page presents a summary of the previous three pages so that you can review the choices you have selected.  If everything here looks correct, select the "Run" button at the bottom of the page.