Geographic information systems (GIS) for Health Promotion
and Public Health: A Review
Authors: Candace I. J. Nikyforuk and Laura M. Flaman
When medical professionals and researchers and sociologists
as well as politicians are seeking a means to project the best setting and location
to provide health care, GIS has become a highly reputable tool to analyze
demographics of an area and other variables such as need for health care and
locations that are more susceptible to dis-eases. According to Candace I. J.
Nikyforuk and Laura M. Flaman, GIS combines mapping and statistical analysis to
“link people to place” through a simple computer generated visual (63). Nikyforuk
& Malan’s description of GIS is spot on and can be linked to any subject
matter that involves people and places. The manner in which it links people to
health care, however, is very important especially in the public health sector
and imporverished areas with little access to health care. When GIS is used to
analyze the need for health care, this research is used by policy makers who
make the health care decisions for the people.
This article is a review
of 621 journal articles and health care literature that contained the topic of
GIS as a means to connect more people to health care. The two main purposes of
the review were:
“(a) to
identify how GIS applications have been used in health-related research, including
policy development, planning, monitoring, and surveillance and
(b) to critically examine the issues, strengths, and challenges
inherent to those applications. (64)”
Nikyforuk and Malan used GIS to analyze
four GIS applications common to the literature which included: Disease Surveillance, Risk Analysis, Health
Access and Planning, and Community Health Profiling.
Disease
Surveillance is the most
common use for GIS in the public health arena. Disease Sureveillance uses
disease mapping and disease modeling which compiles and tracks information on
the “incidence, prev alence and spread of disease (66).” Through extrapolation,
the GIS applications, disease mapping and modeling can be used to predict and
prevent the spread of disease.
Risk
Analysis looks at health
risks as it relates to environmental hazards such as living in close proximity
to factories, industrial waste sites, high amounts of traffic, highly poluted
areas and areas that have poor social health conditions. The use of GIS allows
for an objective visualization of all environmental hazards as it relates to
population densities in the hazardous areas. These analyses can help
communicate public health risks as well as identify need.
Health
Access and Planning can be
used as a way of marketing and networking for healthcare service and delivery
especially for those places with the most need. Access pertains to a population’s
ability to seek health care providers when needed.
Community
Health Profiling is the
GIS application that maps out the general health of a community using
sociodemographic information. This data can help determine the link between
health and location.
Nikyforuk and Malan discuss that the four
health related GIS applications are distinct in mentioning but not distinct in
the way that their information often overlaps. This makes sense since generally
the main focus behind using GIS to analyze health conditions in certain areas is
to prevent disease and provide health care. The biggest challenges that GIS
faces when analyzing health care are the biases and errors that happen when
using certain variables that don’t represent a population very well. This can
easily be rectified with an experienced GISer especially experienced in medical
applications. Lastly, a large purpose behind using GIS is to provide objective
data to sway policy makers when it comes to making health care policies.
You found a great article. This is a good example of a review article. This is an article written as a summary of the literature. As you can see in this article the authors reviewed 621 journal articles. When reviews are done there is an objective to answer questions about the state of the field. In this case the authors wanted to determine how GIS is applied to health.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Risk Analysis application is a good example for environmental studies, looking at environmental hazards and impact on human health. This application looks at how a person's environment impacts their health. This can be a great final project research direction.
This is a very good article in detailing the four ways a GIS application can be used to promote greater public health. From this summary, I see that these four GIS applications can easily be associated to Alex Petrucci's posting on GIS use in health outreach programs, especially it's use of "community health profiling." From understanding the basics of GIS use in the health sector form this article and seeing an example of this GIS use in a specific community health outreach program, I see the applications of GIS playing a very dominate part in organizing, coordinating, and assessing health related practices and services within our communities.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting article. I love how GIS is used to connect all these different scientists, doctors, and politicians. The 4 different applications are all very interesting and still very different. It would be interesting to overlay some of the information about sickness with some of the data about food deserts from Adriana's post and see if their is any correlation.
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