This blog post was written by Lauren Scott, Geoprocessing/Spatial Statistics Product Engineer in the Software Products Group at ESRI in Redlands.

Hot Spot Analysis is just one of the pattern analysis tools in the Spatial Statistics Toolbox.You can use these tools to explore spatial patterns in order to answer questions like:

• Where are crime rates unexpectedly high?
• Are there regions in the country where people live longer
• Where do we find anomalous spending patterns?
• Are there sharp boundaries between affluence and poverty?
• Is the disease remaining geographically fixed or is it spreading?
• Which features are most concentrated?
• Does the spatial pattern of the virus mirror the spatial pattern of the population at risk?
• Which site is most accessible?
• Where is the population center?
• Which species has the broadest territory?

To learn more about spatial pattern analysis, check out some of these resources:

- The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis, Volume 2
- Understanding Spatial Statistics in ArcGIS 9, a free one-hour Web seminar
- The Spatial Statistics Toolbox online documentation
- View a five-minute video showing a hot-spot analysis of 911 emergency call data (click on “Using Spatial Statistics Tools”)
- Download a hot-spot analysis model from the Geoprocessing Resource Center.
- Extend Crime Analysis with ArcGIS Spatial Statistics Tools , Spatial Statistics Provide New Insights, or Spatial Patterns of Disease Inspire New Ideas on Possible Causes in ArcUser Online
- Spatial Pattern Analysis concepts are discussed in the ArcGIS 9.3 Web help and include Modeling Spatial Relations, What is a Z Score?  What is a P value?, and Spatial Weights.
- Technical workshop slides are available from the ESRI Public Health and Homeland Security Conferences.

Have fun!