. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2025 Aug 25.

Published in final edited form as: Lancet Microbe. 2025 Apr 11;6(8):101094. doi: 10.1016/j.lanmic.2025.101094

Table 1:

Methods used to address the four types of questions with point or areal data

	Question a (spatial description)	Question b (hotspot detection and localisation)	Question c (hotspot explanation)	Question d (association between proximity and genetic relatedness)

Point data	Dot map (eg, using colour or shape to represent different Mycobacterium tuberculosis clusters) Illustration using text in a table Hypothesis testing (eg, ANOVA)	Density-based methods (eg, kernel density estimation) Neighbour-based methods (eg, nearest neighbour index) Distance-based methods between cases and controls (eg, distance-based mapping) Spatial (Bayesian) modelling	Hypothesis test (eg, ANOVA) Regression modelling Geostatistical spatial modelling	Correlation Regression modelling Spatial (Bayesian) modelling
Areal data	Display aggregated information at the centroid of the locality (eg, pie chart and graduated symbol) Choropleth map Illustration using text in a table Hypothesis test (eg, χ² test)	Global and local spatial autocorrelation (eg, Global Moran’s I and Getis-Ord Gi*) Scan statistics Spatial (Bayesian) modelling	Hypothesis test (eg, χ² test) Regression modelling Disease mapping	Correlation Regression modelling Spatial (Bayesian) modelling