County-based Hunger Risk Map and other Health GIS News
On Friday, April 27, 2012, join Feeding America in Washington, D.C. as we unveil"Map the Meal Gap 2012", the second annual research study that provides estimates of food insecurity at the county and congressional district level. Food insecurity is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle for all household members. This study was supported by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and The Nielsen Company. ...
A summary of the findings, an interactive map of the United States, and the full report will be available at www.feedingamerica.org/mapthegap on Friday, April 27, 2012.
The BBC offers a world map of where you are most likely to die by different factors - shark attacks, falling off ladders, etc. The text is clear: "... it shows you the country with the highest proportion of deaths per million people for a specific type of accident, illness or other cause." I'm not sure how valuable it is, but the data is available (via PDF!) for download.
- BBC
Maps.com has published the very first ebook format title for Geographer Dr. Neal Lineback. The ebook, currently available via the Maps.com store and online book marketplace Lulu.com, draws on a specially selected collection of articles from the successful Geography in the News™ (GITN) series of weekly current events stories.
If you think Square, the hardware/software add-on for cell phones to take payment via credit card is cool, consider the implications of an add-on that will read blood samples, return positive or negative results for different diseases and send into and map results. It's in development at UCLA.
In the journal Lab on a Chip, the team of engineers describes the device as an RDT-reader attachment that clips onto a cell phone (they used iPhones and Android-based smartphones). At 65 grams, the attachment consists of an inexpensive lens, two AAA batteries, and three LED arrays.
The researchers say the attachment can read almost every type of RDT available; all the user does is insert the RDT strip into the attachment, which is then converted into a digital image via the phone's built-in camera.
An app then determines two things: whether the digital RTD is valid and whether the results are positive or negative. But the team didn't stop there. They have the reader transmit these results wirelessly to a server for processing, storage, and mapping via Google Maps to track the spread of specific conditions and diseases globally over time.
- C|net (includes video)
