Prediction of cancer mortality risks in spatio-temporal disease mapping

The main goal of spatio-temporal disease mapping is describing the evolution of geographical patterns of mortality or incidence risks (rates). This could give clues to epidemiologists and public health researchers to formulate etiologic hypothesis of the disease. However, the ability of disease mapping models to make predictions about future mortality or incidence risks has not been widely explored. In this work, a flexible spatio-temporal model is considered for risk estimation and forecasting. The prediction MSE of both fitted and forecast values, as well as estimators of those quantities, will be derived. Spanish cancer mortality data will be used for illustration.