The Philippines Crowdsources Health Facilities and other Health GIS News

In support of Kalusugan Pangkalahatan, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) launches the first of its ‘Crowdsourcing for Health’ initiatives using GoogleMaps.

Determined to maximize the benefits of the social networking platform, PhilHealth is encouraging the online crowd to help map all health facilities in the Philippines, according to  the statement from the agency website.

In fact, the public is invited to put points on Google Map Maker or OpenStreetMap. PhilHealth will be combining the data and hosting it on its website. I'm pretty sure you can do that with OSM data (with attribution); I'm not sure about the Google licensing.

- Philippine Information Agency

Middle Georgia got an EPA grant to do lead testing via Head Start programs among other things. The other things:

The goals of the grant are to increase testing in the district’s 10 rural counties from 9 percent to at least 25 percent within a year; to educate primary care providers about lead risks and testing requirements; and to evaluate a geographic information system risk model in Bibb County that will identify high-risk neighborhoods and the children who live in them.

- Macon.com

A recent report [pdf] on health inequities in the San Joaquin Valley gives new meaning to the real estate mantra: location, location, location.

The report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and Fresno State's Central Valley Health Policy Institute found that location plays a very real role in health -- so real in fact that life expectancy rates can vary by as much as 21 years in the valley, depending on the ZIP code.

- California HealthLine

AP and Google Team to Cover Super Tuesday other Election GIS News

The Associated Press and Google are rewriting the book this year on how to provide fast, accurate election results, and the theme of the latest chapter is cooperation.

Tuesday night, news outlets that pay AP for election results for particular states will be able to embed Google Maps of the results on their sites.

- Poynter

Time Magazine is offering some special content to Foursquare users who check in at the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August or the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Users who unlock the Time-Foursquare badge get “access to a curated list of must-attend venues and events,” plus convention tips from Time reporters—like historical facts from past conventions and 2012 campaign tips about the nominees and delegates.

- Paid Content

Two fascinating and useful studies of California’s political landscape have been published in recent days, one mapping the geographic variations of attitudes and the other creating and applying a scientific measure of communities’ ideologies.

“California’s Political Geography” by Eric McGhee and Daniel Krimm of the Public Policy Institute of California, matches California counties by residents’ party identification, 2008 presidential vote and by responses to two social and two fiscal survey questions with what McGhee calls “clear liberal or conservative dimensions.” ...

“The California Political Precinct Index” by David Latterman at the University of San Francisco, is a powerful tool for assessing counties and electoral districts according to actual precinct votes on nine ballot measures that are “easily interpretable” as liberal or conservative.

- CalBuzz

Columbia County, GA Launches CitySourced and other Government GIS News

Columbia County, GA is using CitySourced's Citizen Reporter. After looking at the directions for download for the five different platforms, I wonder if it's time for HTML5, even if it must run on more than one browser.

- ABC 6

In Rancho Cucamongo, CA there's an iOS ony solution (Android coming): RC2GO "features directories of dining and shopping options within the city. Users can determine, for example, how many Thai food restaurants are in the city or the location of the nearest coffee shop." And, you can report potholes and graffitti, too.

The app was a joint project between the city and CyberTech, an information technology company with offices in Redlands. The city wanted to create an app that was useful and one that would make it easier to communicate with City Hall.

[Title]Embracing Google Earth

[Teaser] Five years ago, Google Earth worried government officials. But agencies have since realized that the benefits of high-resolution, up-to-date imagery of our Earth outweigh the risks.

That's how Jessica Mulholland, associate editor of GOVERNING, and associate editor of both Government Technology and Public CIO magazines, describes the use of platform in local and state government. 

- Governing

The New York State Liquor Authority launched its map that shows every current and pending liquor license in the state andany disciplinary actions taken by the agency against the licensee. The data used to require a FOIA request. (APB coverage). Tech: Fountains Spatial, ArcGIS Flex, Bing, Google StreetView. This is an interface I'd have my students explore! Did not work well in Safari.

- Times Union

Oregon is filtering data from Data.gov to its own state portal.

Locating data from the state and Data.gov portals can be cumbersome due to the abundance of data available, [Deputy State CIO Sean] McSpaden said. “What we’ve done initially is establish the connection. Over time, our plan is to work with Socrata on filtering so that only Oregon-specific [federal] data is present or accessible on our site,” he said.

To differentiate between what’s Oregon data and what’s federal data, McSpaden said Socrata is using icons on Data.Oregon.gov to indicate who owns what. 

- GovTech

Sacramento Green Map and other Government GIS News

...a new website that showcases Sacramento County’s green strategies, achievements and helpful information. The website – Green Sacramento County – features an interactive map to pinpoint green activity and provides constituents with green news, tips and resources.

You can choose different base maps including Google and Esri streets.

- Sacremento Press

The board [Coweta County, GA] approved an agreement with TomTom North America for GIS data. The county has agreed to provide the GIS data to the GPS and mapping companies for free in order to help speed the updates reflecting the new names of Walt Sanders Memorial Drive (International Park) and Walt Sanders Memorial Court (Enterprise Court).

- Times Herald

In 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) launched the National Broadband Map (NBM), a tool local governments can use to determine the level broadband access in their communities. Join [National League of Cities] NLC and NTIA on January 25 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time for a webinar, entitled The National Broadband Map: An Economic Development Tool for Cities which will show how cities can use this tool and provide feedback so it can be further enhanced to suit their needs.

- NLC.org

[Ottawa/Carleton] OC Transpo [Ontario, CA] should open its bus-location data to outside programmers the same day it launches its own application to tell riders when their buses are due, says Councillor Stephen Blais, and he intends to present a motion to the city's transit commission at its next meeting on Thursday to force the company to do it.

- Ottawa Citizen

Free Mosaic for Illinois County and other Government GIS News

Phillip K. Mol of G-1 Aerial Surveys has offered to replace a 1978 aerial mosaic that hangs in the Bureau County, IL Court House. He does such work for about $1000 but will give the county a new one for free. No, there will be no new pics - he'll assemble it from IDNR and USGS orthoquads that date to 2005. But, he does want his company to get credit on the image.

- News Tribune

The City of Indio [CA] has been approved to receive grant funding in the amount of $47,000 from the California Office of Traffic Safety to implement an automated traffic collision and tracking program with Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities. "This is a significant upgrade and modernization of how we'll be able to prevent collisions and make Indio's roads safer. This program will greatly assist the city in proactively reducing the number of reported traffic collisions city wide, said Indio's Mayor Glenn Miller.

- My Desert

As many as 56 medical marijuana facilities in Colorado are located within 1,000 feet of a school, according to an I-News analysis of school addresses and licenses issued to more than 700 medical marijuana facilities statewide.

Federal and state laws require a 1000 foot buffer. So, the feds are cracking down as they recently did in California. GIS was part of the analysis.

- Inewsnetwork.org

Forget OSM and Google Maps, Hillsborough, NJ is using GreenMap.org for its community mapping efforts.

- Hillsborough Patch