Some Applications of Radial Plots

Abstract

A radial plot is a graphical display for comparing estimates that have differing precisions. It is a scatter plot of standardized estimates against reciprocals of standard errors, possibly with respect to a transformed scale, designed so that the original estimates can be compared and interpreted. The estimates may be means, regression coefficients, proportions, rates, odds ratios, random effects, or indeed any parameter estimates that merit comparison between individuals or groups. This article illustrates some uses of radial plots by discussing a variety of data examples taken from the literature. The statistical application areas include interlaboratory trials, point process event rates, empirical Bayes estimation, modeling of counting data, analysis of overdispersed and underdispersed binomial and Poisson data, mixture modeling and meta-analysis.

Key Words:

• Components of variance
• Graphical display
• Interlaboratory trial
• Meta analysis
• Overdispersion
• Precision of estimates
• Transformation of parameters