The Center for Disease Control's "Million Hearts" campaign is to reduce incidents of heart disease and stroke over five years. Five local health departments are mapping indidents to develop intervention strategies.
Washington County and Hennepin County MN, Boston, Mass.; Cambridge, Mass. and Rockland, N.Y. are all participating.
- TwinCities.com
The prototype of a Web-based application, which helps online tracking of communicable diseases such as swine flu and dengue at the level of primary health centres (PHCs) and provides the analytics to evolve emergency response and long-term epidemiological strategy, will be launched this month in Tiruvallur.
The GIS application developed by a team at the unit of Environmental Health and Biotechnology, Loyola College, provides field staff and clinicians unique IDs and passwords for reporting disease using smart phones, basic mobiles or internet-enabled computers.
To which I respond: which Loyola and what GIS system? I confirmed Loyola in Chennai. (Hindu, 2011). I could not find anything on the technology, but my guess is it's Ushahidi.
- The Hindu
Location is the key theme of a special issue of in a special theme issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Each of the six studies uses the latest concepts and methods in geographic information systems (GIS)-based research to determine how the geographic location affects physical health. A study titled "Spatial Classification of Youth Physical Activity Patterns" shows, for example, that while rural youth get the largest proportion of their physical activity while at school, urban and suburban youth are most active when commuting. Not only does this finding suggest that the walk to school might be just as important to some children's health as is the physical education they receive as part of the school curriculum, it is also important given that adolescent health behaviors are predictive of behaviors in adults.
One of the commentaries on the topic notes that GIS is not a panacea and it's still early in its use.
- press release
- SciAm Blog
by Adena Schutzberg on 04/10 at 01:53 AM |
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The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a new interactive web tool—the NCHHSTP Atlas—that allows users to create maps, charts, and tables using HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted disease (STD) data collected by CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).
Amont other things it offers data for a number of diseases (AIDS, HIV, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and primary and secondary syphilis and more to come), for a number of years (2000-2009) and unlike other visualization tools, is powered by GIS (ArcGIS for Flex).
- AIDS.gov Blog
A Legionnaire's disease outbreak popped up in Wisconsin. But geography came to the rescue, as did good surveillance. Thomas Haupt an epidemiologist for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health explains how it was tracked to a hospital waterfall.
Well, it started off with our routine surveillance for Legionnaires' disease in Wisconsin. We did notice that within a four week period in this small area we had at least eight cases of Legionnaires' disease. Our follow-up is to ask questions as to where they may have been in the 10 days prior to their onset of illness. At least six of the patients identified that they had been in one particular hospital.
- NPR
On Curacao a GIS is helping health workers keep track of efforts to minimize dengue fever, reports of breeding grounds and the levying of fines against those not taking care in prevention.
- Amigoe
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/17 at 03:00 AM |
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Princeton University-led researchers report in the journal Science (9 December) that nighttime-lights imagery presents a new tool for pinpointing disease hotspots in developing nations by revealing the population boom that typically coincides with seasonal epidemics. In urban areas with migratory populations, the images can indicate where people are clustering by capturing the expansion and increasing brightness of lighted areas. The researchers found the technique accurately indicates fluctuations in population density - and thus the risk of epidemic - that can elude current methods of monitoring outbreaks.
- BizCommunity.com
A group of Penn Medicine researchers is set to save lives with cell phone cameras -- and they're challenging the public to help. The MyHeartMap Challenge, a month-long contest slated to take place beginning in mid January, will send thousands of Philadelphians to the streets and to social media sites to locate as many automated external defibrillators (AEDs) as they can. The contest is just a first step in what the Penn team hopes will grow to become a nationwide, crowd-sourced AED registry project that will put the lifesaving devices in the hands of anyone, anywhere, anytime.Armed with a free app installed on their mobile phones, contest participants will snap pictures of the lifesaving devices -- which are used to restore cardiac arrest victims' hearts to their normal rhythm – wherever they find them in public places around the city.
- press release via AnyGeo
The NHS Atlas of Variation 2011, published by the Department of Health (DH) this month, highlights the amount each Primary Care Trust (PCT) spends on clinical services and links this with health outcomes.
Consisting of 71 maps, the Atlas is aimed at helping commissioners learn from one other, consider the appropriateness of a service, and investigate when clinical health outcomes are not reflecting the financial investment that has been made.
This is the second year the Atlas has been produced.
- British Journal of Healthcare Computing
by Adena Schutzberg on 12/20 at 03:00 AM |
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Narrow your search further:
aed,
africa,
atlas of variation,
crowdsourcing,
epidemics,
epidemiology,
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nhs,
night maps,
remote sensing,
satellite imagery,
uk
“The implication is that our internal sense of space is actually rather flat – we are very sensitive to where we are in horizontal space but only vaguely aware of how high we are,” said Professor Kate Jeffery, lead author from UCL Psychology and Language Sciences.
That conclusion comes from studies of animals and their ability to "map" whether they are high up or not. Brain studies show that animal brains only weakly track elevation.
- Indian Express
Gov Tech interviewed Greg Franklin, the newly appointed deputy director of health information technology for the California Technology Agency. Data integration was among the questions.
You mentioned that next-gen 911 and GIS could theoretically integrate health data. What might technology deliver?
From a GIS standpoint, being able to map, for example, concentrations of uninsured populations or concentrations of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. How would you do that? You have health information exchange, so the assumption is that providers will be able to capture data though electronic health records — and be able to make data transactions from specialists to primary care providers and move the data around. At the same time, if you are able to capture that data and you have a geocoding service — and some organizations already have it — you can geocode that data. But that data is collected through a central point, maybe through an HIE system itself.
From a mapping standpoint, you would be able to look at pockets of [the population] that may be enrolled — let’s say, in a commercial health plan like Blue Shield of California. You may be able to see a lot of diabetes in Blue Shield of California’s population, but where is it geographically. If it were found in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno, that would allow you to tailor certain health-care programs and target those populations in those geographic areas. Is the geocoding [data] part of the HIE mainframe or should it be retained locally at the provider’s organization? Those things would need to be worked out. But clearly there is opportunity to have this massive endeavor to geocode the data moving around the state and be able to report on that from a mapping standpoint, and allow targeting at those specific geographic sites.
- Gov Tech
Kate Jones writes on the G3 blog:
The question [What is today’s equivalent to Jon Snow’s Map?] that was raised by James Reid from JISC during the workshop I was leading at the open geo health event. I would be interested to hear what the readers of this blog think? The workshop was discussing “why GIS is under-utilised in the NHS?” The term GIS in this sense is probably better replaced by location or spatially enabled technology as it encompasses the extent and breadth of contemporary desktop/web/mobile technology.
One suggestion: crowdsourced maps from Haiti. Another: H1N1 maps from a few years ago. Interesting question!
- G3 blog
by Adena Schutzberg on 08/11 at 03:00 AM |
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Blackboard, maker of the dominant online learning platform among nonprofit colleges, has been sold to Providence Equity Partners, the company announced on Friday. The announcement prompted hand-wringing from campus technology officials and reassurances from Blackboard that there are no significant changes in the offing.
The company also owns the Angel platform used for all course (residence and online) at Penn State. The analysis suggest few noticeable changes save the equity firm working to make more money by focusing on products that bring in money and dumping those that do not.
- Inside Higher Ed
Gambia is learning about epidemiology.
Five days International Training Course on “Spatial Epidemiology” methods and application in Global positioning system (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) was recently ended at the ITC in Kerr Serign. The training was organised by the US department of Agriculture in collaboration with the ministry of agriculture, Animal Health and Production Services Department. The training brought together participants in different countries in the sub-region, who deal with animal health and production services.
- Foroyaa
The National Assessment Governing Board is hosting a webinar to share the release of The Nation's Report Card: Geography 2010, Grades 4, 8, and 12, July 19, 2011 at 11 am EDT. You can even submit questions before the event. One of the panelists, Roger Downs was my advisor at Penn State.
- NAGB via @barbareeduke
by Adena Schutzberg on 07/08 at 03:00 AM |
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