AmostraBrasil: an R package for household sampling in Brazilian municipalities

Abstract:

Given the relevance of epidemiological surveys and the difficulties in establishing an adequate sampling plan to conduct them, this article present the AmostraBrasil package, part of the open-access R software, which automatizes the taking of random samples - simple, systematic, and stratified - from households in any Brazilian municipalities (counties). The package also allows automatically obtaining the sampled households' geographic coordinates, was well as shapefiles of the municipality's perimeter and the sample's spatial distribution. The article describes the steps for installing and using the package in the Windows OS. Examples are provided of the package's applications: sampling and spatial distribution of 2,500 residential households in the city of Rio de Janeiro and generation of controls in estimating risk spatial distribution.

Keywords:
Sampling Studies; Health Surveys; Software