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Abstract
Techniques to describe and investigate clustering of disease in space - the nearest-neighbour
test, autocorrelation, Cuzick-and-Edwards' test and the spatial scan statistic - and
in time - the Ederer-Myers-Mantel test and the temporal scan statistic - are reviewed.
The application of these techniques in veterinary epidemiology is demonstrated by
the analysis of a data set describing the occurrence of blowfly strike - both body
strike and breech strike - between August 1998 and May 1999 in 33 commercial sheep
flocks located within two local government areas of southeastern Queensland, Australia.
By applying a combination of these methods, the occurrence of blowfly strike in the
study area is well-characterised in both space and time. Guidelines for investigating
disease clusters in veterinary epidemiology are discussed.