This repository contains example code to estimate spatially smoothed small area estimates of firearm suicide mortality rates across counties in the contiguous United States.

Mortality data used in this analysis is restricted use and cannot be shared publicly. It was obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System. Users of this code will need to supply their own outcome dataset. County-level race-bridged population (denominator) data can be obtained from the CDC here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/bridged_race.htm

The files:

• INLA_Spatial_Smooth_Example.R contains code to replicate the spatial smoothing analysis estimating county-level firearm suicide mortality rates.

• INLA_Space_Time_Example.R contains code to replicate the space-time smoothing analysis estimating annual county-level firearm suicide mortality rates.

If you use code from this repository, please cite the following publication:

Gause EL, Schumacher AE, Ellyson AM, Withers SD, Mayer JD, Rowhani-Rahbar A. An Introduction to Bayesian Spatial Smoothing Methods for Disease Mapping: Modeling County Firearm Suicide Mortality Rates. Am J Epidemiol. 2024. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae005