Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40119121›Full record

ArticleCommunications medicine2025

The use of SatScan software to map spatiotemporal trends and detect disease clusters: a systematic review.

Ahmed Taha Aboushady, Fatma Mansour, Moustafa El Maghraby, Bárbara Teixeira, Sandra Cunha, Maria Manuel Dantas, Ahmed Nawwar, Amira Hegazy, José Chen-Xu

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Communications medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Spatial disparities and determinants of obstetric fistula among childbearing women in sub-Saharan Africa: A geospatial regression approach.International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Ahmed Taha AboushadyBrigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8245-6591
Fatma MansourFaculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Moustafa El MaghrabyFaculty of Dentistry, Minia University, Al Minya, Egypt.
Bárbara TeixeiraLocal Health Unit Entre o Douro e Vouga, Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1249-770X
Sandra CunhaUSF As Gândras, Local Health Unit Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5289-2122
Maria Manuel DantasPublic Health Unit, Local Health Unit Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9834-8977
Ahmed NawwarDepartment of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Amira HegazyDepartment of Community Medicine and Public Health, Kasr Al Ainy Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. amirahegazy@kasralainy.edu.eg.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0046-7909
José Chen-XuNOVA National School of Public Health, Public Health Research Centre, Comprehensive Health Research Center, CHRC, REAL, CCAL, NOVA University Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1238-1384

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundLow and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) often experience a disproportionate burden in health issues. One public health, epidemiology, and spatial statistics software tool has emerged as a stalwart for detecting disease clusters, mapping spatiotemporal trends, and analyzing health-related data-SatScan.

methodsThis systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the extent of the use of spatiotemporal analysis, namely the use of SatScan for understanding health inequalities within LMICs within space and time parameters, shedding light on its potential to inform evidence-based public health interventions and policies. A systematic search was conducted in six electronic databases: PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Cochrane, Scopus, and Embase. It included all human health-related articles, looking into data from LMICs. A descriptive analysis and quality assessment of the articles was performed.

resultsOut of 5215 articles from different databases, 719 are included. Over 516 articles include themes on communicable diseases and over 50% of the articles come from China, Ethiopia, and Brazil. The Poisson-based model is the most commonly used model type, and more than 85% use secondary data sources, with the Demographic Health Surveys datasets being the most used.

conclusionsThis systematic review allows us to understand which areas have been studied and which LMICs have developed research. This helps us detect health issues that have been neglected and the countries which require additional resources to increase their research capacities in this domain.

Identifiers

PMID40119121
PMCPMC11928592

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.