Rate Stabilizing Toolbox (RSTbx)

Generate reliable, local-level age-standardized measures of chronic disease within ArcGIS Pro.

Want to explore additional Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) models? Check out the RSTr package.

Set up

  1. Download the latest release’s zip file
  2. Unzip the zip file
  3. Open up a Map Project within ArcGIS Pro.
  4. Within the Catalog Pane, right click on thse Toolboxes and Add Toolbox.
  5. Navigate to where you have downloaded and extracted the RSTbx and find the rate_stabilizing_toolbox.pyt.

Tools

The RSTbx was designed to be a comprehensive suite of tools that allow you to easily generate small area estimates based off of complete data (e.g. not survey data). These tools were designed to work in sequential order (See flowchart below).

Census Data Retriever (CDR)

Retrieving data from the Census can be hard. The CDR aims to simplify that process by doing it for you! Simply specify the survey/census of interest and the geographic unit and the CDR will generate a (optionally, age-stratified) total population table. The CDR can also optionally download Census TIGER or cartographic boundaries.

Individual Data Processing (IDP)

It is often the case that your data is collected at the individual level. These data will be need to be aggregated to the region (and age group, for age standardized rates) for rate calculations within the Rate Stabilizing Tool. This tool was developed to make that process easier!

Rate Stabilizing Tool (RST)

The RST offers an easy-to-use interface for the restricted univariate conditional autoregressive (UCAR) model. With the RST, you can generate small area estimates, credible intervals for those estimates, and the maximum credible levels at which these estimates would be considered reliable.

Contact Us

Encounter a bug or have an idea for a feature? Open an Github issue.
Have additional questions? Send us an email at cehi@uic.edu.