geography and health
DESCRIPTION
September 2012 GIS ToT WebinarTRANSCRIPT
Geography and Health
Objective
To review uses of GIS as a tool to assist public health efforts
Identify spatial methods and techniques that can help with health related data
Links between geography and health
Geography can affect health through landscape, location of services, location of population in need, human interaction with landscape
Landscape
How the physical landscape can affect health
Susceptibility to natural disasters
Standing water
Drainage
Positive effects?
GIS and Landscape
Location of Services and Population in Need Where are health facilities?
Are they clustered?
Are there gaps, areas without facilities?
How can we efficiently stock facilities?
Facility Service Area
What is the coverage area for a facility?
Buffers
A circle of a defined radius around a health facility
5 km
Veronoi (Theissen) Polygons
Draws boundaries around points so that areas are equally distributed around the points.
Facilities
Facilities and Voronoi Polygons
Service Area and Population in Need Are the services in the area where the need is
greatest?
What is the population being served?
Estimates of numbers of people
Specific sub-groups
From Article: Kernel density estimation as a technique for assessing availability of health services in Nicaragua Spencer, Angeles , HEALTH SERVICES AND OUTCOMES RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Vol 7, Nu 3-4, p145-157
Routine Health Information and GIS RHIS can include data from health facilities or
surveillance data, M&E data
RHIS and GIS can work harmoniously together to identify geographic patterns and address public health outbreaks
DHIS2
District Health Information System
Free, open source district health based RHIS
HISP India
Survey Data
Survey data is an important component of the public health data infrastructure.
Survey data includes specialized surveys such as DHS but can also include other data such as Census.
To be analyzed in a GIS the data needs a geographic identifier
Some survey data withhold geographic identifier for confidentiality reasons
Not an exhaustive list
Other ways geography is important in health:
Epidemiology
Modeling social networks
Risky behavior
Key points
Public health and geography are interlinked
Many geographic approaches for public health issues such as calculating service areas, underservice and using RHIS and survey data.
Any questions?
Thank You