A MULTIVARIATE SPATIOTEMPORAL CHANGE-POINT MODEL OF OPIOID OVERDOSE DEATHS IN OHIO

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Staci A Hepler, Wake Forest University; Lance Waller, Emory University; David M Kline, Ohio State University
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-09-01
• Publisher: INST MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS-IMS
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2021 Institute of Mathematical Statistics
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/20-AOAS1415
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 3
• Start Page: 1329
• End Page: 1342
• Grant/Funding Information: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21DA045236.
• Keywords: Mathematics; Statistics & Probability; Science & Technology; change point; Bayesian; Multivariate conditional autoregressive; EPIDEMIC; Physical Sciences; spatial rates; DRUG; DEPENDENCE; ABUSE; UNITED-STATES; MORTALITY
• Research Categories: Mathematics; Statistics

Abstract

Ohio is one of the states most impacted by the opioid epidemic and ex-perienced the second highest age-adjusted fatal drug overdose rate in 2017. Initially it was believed prescription opioids were driving the opioid crisis in Ohio. However, as the epidemic evolved, opioid overdose deaths due to fentanyl have drastically increased. In this work we develop a Bayesian multivariate spatiotemporal model for Ohio county overdose death rates from 2007 to 2018 due to different types of opioids. The log-odds are assumed to follow a spatially varying change point regression model. By assuming the regression coefficients are a multivariate conditional autoregressive process, we capture spatial dependence within each drug type and also dependence across drug types. The proposed model allows us to not only study spatiotemporal trends in overdose death rates but also to detect county-level shifts in these trends over time for various types of opioids.