Prediction interval for disease mapping using hierarchical likelihood

In disease mapping, the Bayesian approach is widely used for forming the prediction interval of relative risks. In this paper we propose a hierarchical-likelihood interval for disease mapping, which accounts for the inflation of standard error estimates caused by uncertainty in the estimation of the fixed parameters. Comparison is made with the Bayesian prediction intervals derived from penalized quasi-likelihood and fully Bayesian methods. Through simulation studies, we show that prediction intervals for random effects using hierarchical likelihood maintains the required level.