regression model formula, e.g., y~x1+x2, (do not add
month to the regression equation, it will be added automatically).
data
a data frame.
family
a description of the error distribution and link function to
be used in the model (default=gaussian()). (See family
for details of family functions.).
refmonth
reference month, must be between 1 and 12 (default=1 for
January).
monthvar
name of the month variable which is either an integer (1 to
12) or a character or factor (`Jan' to `Dec' or `January' to `December')
(default='month').
offsetmonth
include an offset to account for the uneven number of
days in the month (TRUE/FALSE). Should be used for monthly counts (with
family=poisson()).
offsetpop
include an offset for the population (optional), this
should be a variable in the data frame. Do not log-transform the offset as
the log-transform is applied by the function.
Month is fitted as a categorical variable as part of a generalized linear
model. Other independent variables can be added to the right-hand side of
formula.
This model is useful for examining non-sinusoidal seasonal patterns. For
sinusoidal seasonal patterns see cosinor.
The data frame should contain the integer months and the year as a 4 digit
number. These are used to calculate the number of days in each month
accounting for leap years.
References
Barnett, A.G., Dobson, A.J. (2010) Analysing Seasonal
Health Data. Springer.