Scan statistics are highly successful for the evaluation of space-time clusters. Recently, concepts from the graph theory were applied to evaluate the set of potential clusters. Wieland et al. introduced a graph theoretical method for detecting arbitrarily shaped clusters on the basis of the Euclidean minimum spanning tree of cartogram transformed case locations, which is quite effective, but the cartogram construction step of this algorithm is computationally expensive and complicated.
Objective
We describe a method for prospective space-time cluster detection of point event data based on the scan statistic. Our aim is to detect as early as possible the appearance of an emerging cluster of syndromic individuals because of a real outbreak of disease amidst the heterogeneous population at risk.