Creating web applications for spatial epidemiological analysis and mapping in R using Rwui

Rwui is a web application for creating web based applications for running R scripts. We describe updates to Rwui that enable it to create web applications for R scripts which return the results of the analysis to the web page as geographic maps.Rwui enables statisticians to create web applications for R scripts without the need to learn web programming. Creating a web application provides users access to an R based analysis without the need to learn R. Recent updates to Rwui have increased its applicability in the field of spatial epidemiological analysis.Spatial epidemiology combines the geographic mapping of disease distributions with pattern analysis, spatial statistics and disease modelling [1-3]. The statistical language R [4] is a high-level mathematical scripting language which includes a vast range of pre-programmed functions, and facilitates rapid development of data analysis programs. It contains many functions useful for epidemiological analysis, including three dedicated epidemiological packages Epi [5] and Epitools [6] and SpatialEpi [7].Statisticians creating epidemiological analyses in R may need to make an analysis available to users who are unfamiliar with the language. A solution is to provide a user-friendly web application for the R script. Values for variables and data files for processing are submitted by the user on a web form. The web application then runs the R script on a server, out of sight of the user, and returns the results of the analysis to the user's web page.Rwui (R Web User Interface) [8] is a web application that creates web applications for running R scripts. Code for the web application is generated automatically so that a fully functional web application for an R script can be implemented in a matter of minutes. So statisticians who are unfamiliar with web programming can easily create web applications for running R scripts.There have been several updates to Rwui since it was first published [8], permitting the applications cr