Introduction to geographic information systems in public health /

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Melnick, Alan L.
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Gaithersburg, Md. : Aspen Publishers, 2002.
Subjects:
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Historical uses of geographic information in public health
  • GIS data acquisition and storage
  • Definition of GIS
  • Data acquisition and storage: incorporating spatial databases
  • Scale and projection
  • Incorporating attribute databases
  • Demographic data
  • Socioeconomic data
  • Vital statistics data
  • Morbidity data
  • Health resources and expenditures
  • Other health-related data sources useful in community health planning
  • Other data with public health implications
  • Environmental data
  • Meteorological data
  • Adding location information to attribute data: global positioning system
  • Data verification : metadata (data about data)
  • GIS data transformation : making maps
  • Geocoding
  • Event mapping
  • Overlays
  • Choropleth maps
  • Querying: distance and buffering
  • Statistical issues
  • Modeling
  • Public health GIS applications : environmental health
  • Environmental exposure and disease risk
  • Nonionizing radiation exposures : identifying exposed cohorts for further studies
  • Air emissions
  • Lead
  • Drinking-water pollution : using GIS to target interventions to protect communities from health risks due to septic contamination, nitrates, and volatile organic compounds
  • Environmental equity : communities at disproportionate risk
  • Public health GIS applications : communicable-disease prevention and control
  • Vaccine-preventable diseases
  • Vector-borne and parasitic communicable diseases : using GIS to target communities for interventions
  • Sexually transmitted disease : gonorrhea
  • Tuberculosis
  • Putting it all together : an automated communicable disease surveillance system
  • Public health GIS applications : injuries
  • Unintentional injuries
  • Intentional injuries : homicide
  • Public health GIS applications : chronic disease prevention
  • Health promotion
  • Cancer clusters
  • Pediatric cancers
  • More common cancers : adult and pediatric brain cancer
  • Studies using modeling techniques to develop surrogate measures of exposure
  • Heart disease
  • Public health GIS applications : community health assessment and planning
  • Planning service delivery : primary care and other human services
  • Using GIS in performing community health assessments
  • Bringing community health assessment to the community
  • Using GIS to map community assets for public health and health services planning
  • Access to other human services
  • Limitations of GIS : lessons learned and challenges
  • Data quality and availability
  • Trained workforce and costs
  • Defining community
  • Confidentiality
  • Misinterpretation of results
  • Getting started with GIS: hardware, operating systems, and software
  • Hardware
  • Operating systems
  • Software
  • GIS on the Internet
  • The future of GIS and the role of public health officials
  • Facilitating public health functions
  • Facilitating public health performance
  • Evaluating public health agency performance
  • Limitations of GIS in evaluating public health performance
  • A research agenda for public health GIS
  • The future of GIS and the role of public health officials
  • Diffusing the technology, serving as resources, and inserting the science.