Death Trends: Mapping Medical Examiner Cases

Death Trends: Mapping Medical Examiner Cases

Cobb County, GA

Jennifer Lana, GISPGIS ManagerCobb County, GeorgiaJennifer.Lana@cobbcounty.org

Outline

• Cobb County GIS

• Medical Examiners

• Project & Data Analysis

• Outcomes

• Path Forward

Cobb County

• Northwest Georgia (USA), Atlanta Metro

• Population: ~ 750,000

• 345 square miles

• 40 Professional Full-time GIS staff, out of 5000 staff in Cobb County

GIS Organization

• ESRI for data, maps and analysis

• Latitude Geographics, AGO, & Leaflet for web & mobile

mapping

• Pictometry Connect for Oblique imagery

• Numerous integrations including: Cartegraph, Maximo,

Accela and Motorola

GIS Software

Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Office

Job Qualifications Coroner Medical Examiner

Required To Be A Physician Usually Not Required Always

Investigates Deaths If death is sudden, violent, untimely, unexpected or cause of death is unknown

Yes Yes

Performs Autopsies No Yes

Determines Cause of Death If death is natural, an accident, a homicide, a suicide or undetermined

Yes Yes

Death Certificates Assigns cause of death Yes Yes

Appointed Or Elected Either Appointed

Pathologist or Forensic Pathologist Not Required Almost Always

Source: www.npr.org, 2011

Death Investigations by State

Georgia Death Investigation Act

If you really want to know…

Medical examiner's inquiry be made in all deaths that occur in this state that meet the following criteria:• As a result of violence;• By suicide or casualty;• Suddenly when in apparent good health;• When unattended by a physician; no person shall be deemed to have died unattended when the death

occurred while the person was a patient of a hospice licensed under Article 9 of Chapter 7 of Title 31 of the Georgia Code.

• In any suspicious or unusual manner, with particular attention to those persons 16 years of age and under;

• After birth but before seven years of age if the death is unexpected or unexplained;• As a result of an execution carried out pursuant to the imposition of the death penalty under Article 2

of Chapter 10 of Title 17;• When an inmate of a state hospital or a state, county, or city penal institution; or• After having been admitted to a hospital in an unconscious state and without regaining consciousness

within 24 hours of admission.

• Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Medical

Examiners service 153 of Georgia’s 159 counties.

• Urban areas can fund and support their own Medical

Examiners (ME), such as Cobb County.

Georgia Medical Examiners

Cobb County Medical Examiner (CCME) Office

• 10 full time staff: Administration, Death Investigators, Forensic Technicians

• 2 licensed physicians certified by the American Board of Pathology (ABP): Dr Christopher Gulledge & Dr Cassie Boggs

Area Served• Six (6) cities and

unincorporated Cobb County.

• 2 Federal Parks: Kennesaw Mountain & Chattahoochee River

• Deaths occur outside of Cobb County but resulted from an injury occurring in Cobb

• Some exceptions may be military personnel who die on Dobbins Air Reserve Base

Operations

• Deaths are reported to the CCME via Forensic investigators: assign case numbers and collect initial assessment info.

• Working with ME, they establish if the case falls within jurisdiction of CCME

• ME then determines extent of medical examination that is needed and applicable tests required for each case

The number of deaths reported to the CCME office and the number of cases accepted for examination have steadily increased since 2012

Project Beginnings:  A match made in….

Overflowing with forensic data… They wanted to know the “WHERE”?

Initial Concepts & Meetings

• Objective: Map historic and current cases

• View Spatial trends for certain manners of death

• Goals: Web map & printed maps

Data• Access Database, used since 1999, with valuable data.

• From 1999-current, Over 20,000 Deaths Examined• Database: 44 tables with 181: macros, queries & reports

Geocoding – Start with basicsIssue: Multiple fields were used for street addresses… making Geocoding even more ‘FUN’.

Manner of Death

• Need to Catalogue the 20,000+ points

• Separated “Natural Cause” from analysis & web maps

• Evaluated Manner Types:- Homicide- Suicide- Drowning- Traffic (Pedestrian)- Traffic (in Vehicle)

GIS is the Understanding the “WHERE” of the data…

• Patterns of Deaths by Manner

• Changes from 1 year to the next

• Relationship between Manners of deaths across our county (ex: Homicides & Overdoses)

Fun with Symbology

Interactive Online Map

Internal Only: Geocortex Software

Individual Case Data in Web-Map

Hot SpotAnalysis

Annual Report for State of Georgia

2015 Report = First year it

included maps

Data Trends

• Spatial trend parallels are noted with Homicides and Overdoses historically

• More recent data suggest Overdoses are becoming spatially sprawling

• Suicides show no statistical spatial pattern from year to year

Pathway Forward

• Currently: Monthly updates to GIS from ME Access database snapshots.

• ME office is upgrading from MS Access database to a new dynamic software system, that GIS will integrate.

• As data continues to be collected, new software acquired for tracking and analyzed in future years… trends will be used to improve the health and safety of citizens in Cobb County.

* DISCLAIMER: GIS staff and interns were not ‘harmed’ during this project: not required to observe autopsies, analyze pictures nor visit crime scenes.

Also, no zombies nor their victims, were part of the analyzed datasets.

Source: “Walking Dead” TV show

QUESTIONS

Jennifer Lana, GISPGIS ManagerCobb County, GeorgiaJennifer.Lana@cobbcounty.org