At AHRI our core focal point is to provide the foundation for studies that attempt to establish an association between disease and geography as well as race/ethnicity. While mathematics or statistical modeling is essential in the understanding and application of research to the improvement of health, such applications are meaningless without sound study designs that are based on the biology and clinical importance of the disease or risk factors in question. The health effect of environment or region can be quantified through disease mapping. Such mappings are characterized by points or regions, and the scale of measurement of the mapping variable. Mapping whether it involves continuous or discrete data can illustrate disease or events rates, and mean in a specified region. Whatever scale of measurement used in constructing the map of disease incidence or mortality, analysis or assessment involves the division of the geographic region of concerns into discrete areas. The mapping of disease requires data on both the events and the population at risk (age, sex, size, race/ethnicity), and in this sense differs from time- trend.

A significant challenge to address these questions is a feasible alternative to mere association observed in epidemiological studies. However, Race/ethnicity may facilitate disease progression or its onset in many ways, explicitly in the socioeconomic, environmental and demographic distributions of these variables among these racial/ethnic groups. For example, the association between race/ethnicity may be removed by controlling for geographical areas. At AHRI our highly qualified experts will focus on the provision of skillful methodologies that are able to conceptualize the research, present a feasible design, and apply appropriate statistical method in arriving at a reliable inference.