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