The Detection of Clusters Using a Spatial Version of the Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit Statistic

A test statistic for the detection of spatial clusters is developed by generalizing the common chi-square goodness-of-fit test. The paper includes a discussion of the relationship between the statistic and other associated statistics, and provides an analysis of both its null distribution and power. The paper concludes with the development of a local version of the statistic and an application to leukemia clustering in central New York.