Regression analysis of zero-inflated time-series counts: application to air pollution related emergency room visit data

Abstract

Time-series count data with excessive zeros frequently occur in environmental, medical and biological studies. These data have been traditionally handled by conditional and marginal modeling approaches separately in the literature. The conditional modeling approaches are computationally much simpler, whereas marginal modeling approaches can link the overall mean with covariates directly. In this paper, we propose new models that can have conditional and marginal modeling interpretations for zero-inflated time-series counts using compound Poisson distributed random effects. We also develop a computationally efficient estimation method for our models using a quasi-likelihood approach. The proposed method is illustrated with an application to air pollution-related emergency room visits. We also evaluate the performance of our method through simulation studies.

Keywords:

• compound Poisson distribution
• Poisson mixed models
• time-series count responses
• excessive zeros
• quasi-likelihood
• air pollution

Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The authors would like to thank the editor and the referees for their helpful comments which have served to greatly improve the quality of the paper.