In collaboration with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, the VCU Center on Human Needs is releasing the first of eight studies assessing population health inequities and related social and economic conditions in urban and rural communities across the United States. Working alongside the project partners are eight “Place Matters” teams consisting of individuals who work and live in each of the communities studied.
The first report examines health disparities for the large rural population in the San Joaquin Valley of California. In this migrant farm community, social determinants of health and health equity – such as income and education - are playing an important role in shaping health outcomes. ...
In the San Joaquin Valley population, the VCU team examined how health and environmental conditions impacted mortality and life expectancy. They observed that the risk of premature death – before the age of 65 – in the lowest-income zip codes is nearly twice that of those in the highest-income zip codes.
- press release
... University of Georgia researchers developed a new method for determining where emergency vehicle stations should be located. The results of their work could improve ambulance response time for the 200 million Americans who dial 911 each year, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
"If we can meet this critical time window [of 8 minutes], we can maximize benefits," said Ping Yin, a UGA graduate student studying geography who co-authored the paper.
...The study used sample data from Georgia's EMS Region 10, which includes Jackson, Madison, Elbert, Oglethorpe, Greene, Morgan, Walton, Barrow, Clarke and Oconee counties. The data set included 58 ambulances and a selection of potential base locations. Distributing the vehicles over 82 potential locations gave 87 percent of the population service in less than 8 minutes. When the locations were limited to 20, 78 percent of the population would receive help within 8 minutes, according to the study.
Results will be published in the May issue (fee) of Applied Geography.
- press release
Cholera rates worldwide are some 10 times higher than official reports indicate, and more of than half of those cases are in children younger than 5 years, according to a report published online January 24 in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization(WHO).
Mohammad Ali, PhD, senior scientist and head of the Data Management, GIS, and Statistics Unit of the International Vaccine Institute, Seoul National University Research Park, Republic of Korea, and colleagues examined data reported to WHO, as well as medical literature, alternative disease monitoring systems, previous multicountry studies, data from the Global Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Network database, media reports, and online government reports to arrive at the estimates.
The under reporting is often a consequence of not wanting to hurt tourism as well as the challenge of disease surveillance, even though cases are required to be reported to WHO. The result is that treatment levels may not match need in many countries.
- Medscape
The Guardian has tried to map deprevation in England, only to find the need for very fine scale area polygons. One critic on Twitter suggests the analysis fails ot answer the last two of the four questions of geography: What is Where? Why? So what?
- The Guardian
