In
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
, an ecological correlation (also ''spatial correlation'') is a
correlation
In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...
between two variables that are group
mean
A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...
s, in contrast to a correlation between two variables that describe individuals. For example, one might study the correlation between physical activity and weight among sixth-grade children. A study at the individual level might make use of 100 children, then measure both physical activity and weight; the correlation between the two variables would be at the individual level. By contrast, another study might make use of 100 classes of sixth-grade students, then measure the mean physical activity and the mean weight of each of the 100 classes. A correlation between these group means would be an example of an ecological correlation.
Because a correlation describes the measured strength of a relationship, correlations at the group level can be much higher than those at the individual level. Thinking both are equal is an example of
ecological fallacy
An ecological fallacy (also ecological ''inference'' fallacy or population fallacy) is a formal fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data that occurs when inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inferences about the gro ...
.
See also
;General topics
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Ecological regression
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Geographic information science
Geographic information science (GIScience, GISc) or geoinformation science is a scientific discipline at the crossroads of computational science, social science, and natural science that studies geographic information, including how it represe ...
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Spatial autocorrelation
Spatial analysis is any of the formal techniques which study entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties, primarily used in Urban Design. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques using different analytic appro ...
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Complete spatial randomness
Complete spatial randomness (CSR) describes a point process whereby point events occur within a given study area in a completely random fashion. It is synonymous with a ''homogeneous spatial Poisson process''.O. Maimon, L. Rokach, ''Data Mining a ...
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Modifiable areal unit problem
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The modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) is a source of statistical bias that can significantly impact the results of statistical hypothesis tests. MAUP affects results when point-based measures of spatial phenomena are Aggregate data, a ...
;Specific applications
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Spatial epidemiology
Spatial epidemiology is a subfield of epidemiology focused on the study of the spatial distribution of health outcomes; it is closely related to health geography.
Specifically, spatial epidemiology is concerned with the description and examinat ...
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Spatial econometrics Spatial econometrics is the field where spatial analysis and econometrics intersect. The term “spatial econometrics” was introduced for the first time by the Belgian economist Jean Paelinck (universally recognised as the father of the disciplin ...
References
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Covariance and correlation