Toward an analytic framework for the spatial epidemiology of compassion

Abstract

The epidemiology of compassion seeks to better understand factors related to the experiences (giving, sharing, and receiving) of compassion. Here, we summarize existing analytic tools from different disciplines allowing analysts to explore local and neighborhood features as a context for better understanding a “geography” of compassion. We provide a brief review of the concepts defining compassion, how these concepts might be measured at local levels of geography, how epidemiology provides a framework for estimating associations between these measures and other local features, and how spatial statistical models adjust for spatial correlations and provide measures of uncertainty associated with estimated associations. We next outline how these tools, taken together, can enable empirical studies of local compassion. We discuss what sorts of epidemiologic questions can be answered, and what compromises analysts will make along the way based on choices of data and analytic methods. We seek to provide a broad framework for such analyses and outline examples illustrating the types of data available and what questions could be answered from each. This framework provides a setting for more detailed creation, description, estimation, and navigation of compassion “landscapes” from the perspectives of giving, sharing, and receiving compassion.