Spatial survival modelling of business re-opening after Katrina: Survival modelling compared to spatial probit modelling of re-opening within 3, 6 or 12 months

Zhou and Hanson; Zhou and Hanson; Zhou and Hanson (2015, Nonparametric Bayesian Inference in Biostatistics, pages 215–46. Cham: Springer; 2018, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 113, 571–81; 2020, spBayesSurv: Bayesian Modeling and Analysis of Spatially Correlated Survival Data. R package version 1.1.4) and Zhou et al. (2020, Journal of Statistical Software, Articles, 92, 1–33) present methods for estimating spatial survival models using areal data. This article applies their methods to a dataset recording New Orleans business decisions to re-open after Hurricane Katrina; the data were included in LeSage et al. (2011b, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 174, 1007—27). In two articles (LeSage etal., 2011a, Significance, 8, 160—63; 2011b, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 174, 1007—27), spatial probit models are used to model spatial dependence in this dataset, with decisions to re-open aggregated to the first 90, 180 and 360 days. We re-cast the problem as one of examining the time-to-event records in the data, right-censored as observations ceased before 175 businesses had re-opened; we omit businesses already re-opened when observations began on Day 41. We are interested in checking whether the conclusions about the covariates using aspatial and spatial probit models are modified when applying survival and spatial survival models estimated using MCMC and INLA. In general, we find that the same covariates are associated with re-opening decisions in both modelling approaches. We do however find that data collected from three streets differ substantially, and that the streets are probably better handled separately or that the street effect should be included explicitly.