FOCUS ON:
Earth Observation essential for geohazard mitigation
More than 250 scientists from around the world gathered for a five-day workshop at ESA's Earth Observation Centre in Frascati.
News Flash
Upcoming Events
Resources & Tools
Public Health Map Generator Reveals a Path to Better Health Care
Knowing where a virus is spreading—and how quickly—can help public health professionals predict its course and lessen its impact.
This capability is but one of several advantages that a new, easy-to-use Public Health Map Generator offers to nurses, physicians, epidemiologists, health planners, and public health professionals across Canada. Established by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the Map Generator gives public health professionals the ability to produce maps that allow them to better analyze and understand their public health data.
Health professionals seldom have affordable tools to map their public health data, and they tend to lack experience with geographic information systems (GIS). Capitalizing on the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), the web-based Public Health Map Generator offers solutions on both fronts.
First, it provides health professionals with access to free location-based data to monitor disease outbreaks, spot population groups at risk, plot access to health care, and research any number of health theories and solutions. And second, it enables health professionals to add their own data and create custom maps. These maps can reveal perspectives and answers that tabular data can easily obscure.
The ideal prescription for integrating data layers: GeoConnections
GeoConnections contributed $80,000 to the Public Health Map Generator project. PHAC used this money to configure data sets for the application, create user documents, and install and configure the application for its official launch on the production server.
But GeoConnections' contribution goes far beyond dollars.
"We leveraged the interoperability standards that GeoConnections endorsed in the past," said Mr. David Lewis, Team Leader with the PHAC. "Creating the Map Generator using these endorsed standards made it a lot easier to integrate data in our spatial data warehouse with other data sets."
The Public Health Agency of Canada uses the GeoConnections infrastructure to retrieve data not only from its own spatial data warehouse but also from the National Atlas of Canada and from Natural Resources Canada National Topographic Database. Also, in the spirit of cooperation, the PHAC makes its data available to other health organizations which can link it with their own data sets.
"Because we designed the Public Health Map Generator to adhere to the various standards endorsed by GeoConnections," said Mr. Lewis, "as additional compliant data services come on line, we can enrich the Map Generator even further."
New perspectives generate new ideas—and better health care solutions
By taking advantage of the CGDI, the Public Health Map Generator allows public health professionals to match disease surveillance data and public health information to geographic reference points or data layers. These reference points include postal codes, health regions, census boundaries, address ranges, and hospital locations.
Overlaying their incident data on top of CGDI reference points enables health professionals to produce detailed and layered maps. These maps let users easily compare health related trends or activities in specific regions or provinces. For example, health professionals could use the Map Generator to analyze asthma rates across regions. This insight could help them intervene more effectively and better plan how to reduce asthma attacks.
The Public Health Map Generator makes it easy for health professionals to visualize and analyze health data," said Mr. Lewis. "With an enhanced visual perspective, they can quickly see patterns of diseases as they occur in various places across the country. This information enables public health professionals to make better evidence-based decisions for targeting responses in the affected areas."
Elevating the standards of public health care
The Public Health Map Generator allows health professionals with little or no web-mapping skills or knowledge to better apply their public health data. All they need is a web browser and Internet access. Affordable and intuitive, the Map Generator equips these professionals to engage in an important aspect of their work quickly and with relative ease. It also facilitates new types of analyses that were previously not possible. Not surprisingly, the Map Generator has been a big success.
"Public health professionals have really been positive about the Map Generator's ability to help them map their health-event data," said Mr. Lewis. "We've had a high number of inquiries to gain access to it."
Public health staff of various organizations participated in the pilot of the Public Health Map Generator, greatly contributing to its success. These organizations include the following:
Health and Community Services Eastern Region, Newfoundland
Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority, Nova Scotia
Colchester East Hants Health Authority, Nova Scotia
PEI Health and Social Services
Alberta Health and Wellness
NWT Department of Health and Social Services
Health Canada
For more information on GIS for Public Health Practice: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/php-psp/gis_e.html
| GeoConnections is a national partnership initiative to evolve and expand the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure. |