Testing for similarity in area-based spatial patterns: Andresen's test, critique, and improvements

Abstract

Andresen’s spatial point pattern test (SPPT) can be used to compare two spatial point patterns on defined areal units: it identifies in which particular areas the spatial point patterns diverge and aggregates these local (dis)similarities to one global measure. It has been widely applied to geographic analyses of crime and police behavior. I discuss the limitations of the SPPT and discuss an improved method. I provide code examples and an R package on Github to perform the improved tests easily.

Wouter Steenbeek

Senior Researcher

My research interests include spatio-temporal patterns of crime, offender decision-making, neighborhoods, machine learning, and R.