Lance A. Waller, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biostatistics
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University
email: lwaller AT sph.emory.edu
Telephone: (404) 727 1057
Fax: (404) 727 1370

Dr. Waller received his PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1992. His interests involve statistical analysis of spatially referenced data.  Examples include tests of spatial clustering of disease cases, for example around a hazardous waste site; small area estimation; hierarchical models with spatially structured random effects; and spatial point process models. Recent applications include spatiotemporal mapping of disease rates, statistical methods for assessing environmental justice, the analysis of spatial trends in Lyme disease incidence and reporting, spatial modelling of the spread of raccoon rabies, and point process analysis of sea turtle nesting locations in Florida.   He is interested in both the statistical methodology, and the environmental and epidemiologic models involved in the analysis of this type of data. He teaches courses in spatial biostatistics, applied linear models, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Public  Health.

Additional material (data sets and sample code) for Waller and Gotway (2004) Applied Spatial Statistics for Public Health Data. New York: Wiley (click on book cover).

 

Book Reviews of Waller and Gotway (2004) Applied Spatial Statistics for Public Health Data. New York: Wiley

Berke, O. (2005) Biometrics. 61, 1133-1134.

Diggle, P. (2005) Journal of the American Statistical Association. 100, 702-703.

Schuenemeyer, J.H. (2005) Computers & Geosciences 31, 947–948.

 

Code relating to recent publications:

Waller, L.A., Smith, D., Childs, J.E., and Real, L.A. (2003, to appear) Monte Carlo assessments of goodness of fit for ecological simulation models. Ecological Modelling.

Recent presentations:

2002 Statistics and the Environment Section of the American Statistical Association Workshop on Spatial Statistics: Integrating Statistics, GIS and Statistical Graphics.  Presentation: "Agile GIS: Building Application-Specific Spatial Analytic Software from Freely Available Software Tools". (PDF file)

2002 Joint Statistical Meetings Introductory Overview Lecture: "How Many is Too Many? Detection of Disease Outbreaks and Clusters"  (PDF file)

Selected Recent Publications: (see CV for complete list as of July 1, 2002)

  1. Waller, L.A., Hill, E.G., and Rudd, R.A. (2006, to appear). "The geography of power: statistical performance of tests of clusters and clustering in heterogeneous populations".
    Statistics in Medicine.
  2. Real, L.A., Henderson, J.C., Biek, R., Snaman, J., Lambert Jack, T., Childs, J.E., Stahl, E., Waller, L., Tinline, R., and Nadin-Davis, S. (2006, to appear) "Unifying the spatial
    population dynamics and molecular evolution of epidemic rabies virus". Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
  3. Jackson, M.C. and Waller, L.A. (2006, to appear) "Exploring goodness-of-fit and spatial correlation using components of Tango's index of spatial clustering". Geographical Analysis.
  4. Cook, C.B., Naylor, D.B., Hentz, J.G., Miller, W.J., Tsui, C., Ziemer, D.C., and Waller, L.A. (2006, to appear) "Disparities in diabetes-related hospitalizations: Relationship of age, sex, and race/ethnicity with hospital discharges, length of stay and direct patient charges". Ethnicity & Disease.
  5. Waller, L.A., Goodwin, B.J., Wilson, M.L., Ostfeld, R.S., Marshall, S.L., and Hayes, E.B. (2006, to appear) "Spatio-temporal patterns in county-level incidence and reporting of Lyme disease in the northeastern United States, 1900-2000". Environmental and Ecological Statistics 13.
  6. Boyd, H.A., Flanders, W.D., Addiss, D.A., and Waller, L.A. (2005) "Residual spatial correlation between geographically referenced observations: A Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach". Epidemiology 16, 532-541.
  7. Real, L.A., Russell, C., Waller, L., Smith, D., and Childs, J. (2005) "Spatial dynamics and molecular ecology of North American rabies". Journal of Heredity 96, 253-260.
  8. Pickle, L.W., Waller, L.A., and Lawson, A.B. (2005) "Current practices in cancer spatial data analysis: a call for guidance". International Journal of Health Geographics 4:3 (13 January 2005).
  9. Gorman, D.M., Gruenewald, P.J., Hanlon, P.J., Mezic, I., Waller, L.A., Castillo-Chavez, C., Bradley, E., and Mezic, J. (2004) "Implications of systems dynamic models and control theory for environmental approaches to the prevention of alcohol- and other drug-related problems". Substance Use and Misuse. 39, 1713-1750.
  10. Boyd, H., Waller, L., Flanders, W.D., Beach, M., Sivilus, J., Lovince, R., Lammie, P., and Addiss, D. (2004). "Community- and individual-level determinants of Wuchereria bancrofti infection in Leogane Commune, Haiti". American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 70, 266-272.
  11. Waller, L.A. (2004) "Surveilling surveillance". An invited commentary of "A generalized linear mixed models approach for detecting incident clusters of disease in small areas, with an
    application to biological terrorism" by K. Kleinman et al. American Journal of Epidemiology 159, 225-227.
  12. Bowman, F.D. and Waller, L.A. (2004) "Exploring models for cardiac imaging data with spatial correlation". Statistics in Medicine 23, 965-985.
  13. Russell, C.A., Smith, D.A., Waller, L.A., Childs, J.E., and Real, L.A. (2004) "A priori prediction of disease invasion dynamics in a novel environment." Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. 271:1534, 21-25.
  14. Adgate, J.L., Ramachandran, G., Pratt, G.C., Waller, L.A., and Sexton, K. (2003). "Longitudinal variability in outdoor, indoor, and personal PM2.5 exposure in healthy non-smoking adults". Atmospheric Environment. 37, 993-1002.
  15. English, P.B., Kharrazi, M., Davies, S., Scalf, R., Waller, L., and Neutra, R. (2003). "Changes in the spatial pattern of low birth weight in a southern California county: the role of individual and neighborhood level factors". Social Science and Medicine 56, 2073-2088.
  16. Waller, L.A. and Barclay, A.B. (2003) "`Agile' GIS: Building application-specific spatial analytic software from freely available software components". Chance. 16, 39-44.
  17. Waller, L.A., Smith, D., Real, L.A., and Childs, J. (2003) "Monte Carlo assessments of goodness of fit for ecological simulation models". Ecological Modelling 164, 49-63.
  18. Adgate, J.L., Ramachandran, G., Pratt, G.C., Waller, L.A., and Sexton, K. (2002). "Spatial and temporal variability in outdoor, indoor, and personal PM2.5 exposure". Atmospheric Environment. 36, 3255-3265.
  19. Haran, M., Carlin, B.P., Adgate, J.L., Ramachandran, G., Waller, L.A., and Gelfand, A.E. (2002). "Hierarchical Bayes models for relating particulate matter exposure measures". In Case Studies in Bayesian Statistics, Volume VI, C. Gatsonis, et al. (eds). Springer-Verlag: New York, pp. 239-254.
  20. Lucey, B.T., Russell, C.A., Smith, D., Wilson, M.L., Long, A., Waller, L.A., Childs, J.E., and Real, L.A. (2002) "Spatio-temporal analysis of epizootic raccoon rabies propagation
    in Connecticut, 1991-1995''. Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases  2, 77-86.
  21. Tassone, E. et al.   DisparityMeasures.ps
  22. English, P.B., Kharrazi, M., Davies, S., Scalf, R.,Waller, L., and Neutra, R. (2002, to appear). Changes in the spatial pattern of low birth weight in a southern California county: the role of individual and neighborhood level factors. Social Science and Medicine.
  23. Haran, M., Carlin, B.P., Adgate, J.L., Ramachandran, G., Waller, L.A., and Gelfand, A.E. (2002, to appear). Hierarchical Bayes models for relating particulate matter exposure measures. In Case Studies in Bayesian Statistics, Volume VI, C. Gatsonis, et al. (eds). Springer-Verlag: New York.
  24. Smith, D., Lucey, B., Waller, L.A., Childs, J.E., and Real, L.A. (2002) Predicting the spatial dynamics of rabies epidemics on heterogeneous landscapes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. 99, 3668-3672.
  25. Sexton, K., Waller, L.A., McMaster, R.B., Maldonado, G., and Adgate, J.L. (2002). The importance of spatial effects for environmental health policy and research. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment. 8, 109-125.
  26. Waller, L.A. (2000). A Civil Action and issues in statistical assessments of the spatial pattern of disease: Do we have a cluster? Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. 32, 174-183.
  27. Wakefield, J., Best, N., and Waller, L.A. (2000). Bayesian approaches to disease mapping. In Spatial Epidemiology: Methods and Applications, P. Elliott, J.C. Wakefield, N.G. Best, and D.J. Briggs, eds. Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp. 106-127.

When not investigating spatial statistics, we find Lance preparing part of a hadrosaur scapula at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta (2002)

hoisting a pint at the John Snow Pub in London (2006),

playing "Abbey Road" outside the Abbey Road Studios (2006),

sitting in with the Nightcrawlers at JSM 2005,


or standing on a log in Colorado... (2001)

in order to mount his trusty steed for a horseback ride with Alisha!


The Waller kids and friend (Allyn (10), Adrian (6.5), and Matthew (8)) (2006)


Link to Colorado pictures
Another picture

Environmental Justice Web Sites