GIS in the field of public health

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Civil service positions in the field of public health are one of the various avenues of employment that students enrolled in a geographic information systems (GIS) degree program can pursue. GIS technologies are often used to collect and display valuable data that can be used as a resource by government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and individuals, helping to promote the health and welfare of the population at large.

Those who are considering getting involved in a GIS graduate program, or who have completed such a course of study and are looking for employment in public health, may benefit from having a thorough understanding of how GIS data is employed in this discipline.

Educational GIS public health resources

Many prominent educational institutions in the U.S. maintain GIS databases of public health information. Additionally, some of these colleges and universities provide links to other useful resources related to this topic.

Public Health Improvements through GIS: This project provides data specifically involving health statistics, as well as tangential but nonetheless pertinent data regarding environmental and socioeconomic factors.

Center for Geographic Analysis: This facility provides a wealth of GIS data that is applicable to a wide field of disciplines, including information provided by the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care: Dartmouth College has maintained this data resource, which documents how medical services and resources are distributed throughout the U.S., for more than two decades. Data culled from Medicare helps form the backbone of this project.

Robert E. Kennedy Library GIS resouces: The Robert E. Kennedy Library in San Luis Obispo, California, provides the SLO DataFinder resource, which allows access to data covering numerous categories, including, for example, the locations of hospitals within San Luis Obispo County.

Government-administered public health resources using GIS data

The majority of job openings in the field of public health will be in various government agencies, at the local, county, state and federal levels. With that in mind, students looking to be enrolled in GIS courses who want to get an idea of the nature of the work can benefit from taking a look at the following information.

Colorado Department of Public Health (CDHPHE): This state-level government agency utilizes GIS technologies to collect and organize public health data, while providing civil service employees in the CDPHE and the general public access to this information. Students pursuing their GIS degrees will likely find that their state's equivalent agency employs similar methods.

National Library of Medicine: The abstract provided here offers a summary of how this study's authors determined that GIS data would be a great benefit to public health departments in local governments in the U.S.

National Cancer Institute: These maps provide a practical example of how GIS data may be specifically used in the field of public health - the statistics offered provide rates of mortality for cancer patients in specific U.S. states.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: This database maintained by the CDC offers customized reports of injury data in various categories - fatal and non-fatal injuries, violent deaths, cost of injury reports and more, arranged through the use of GIS methods.

Environmental Protection Agency: Although this federal department's mandate is the preservation of the U.S. environment, it uses GIS technologies to display data that has relevance to public health and welfare, such as the disposal of hazardous chemicals.

Organizational public health GIS data and resources

Outside of governmental employment, students interested in a public health position will want to examine how various nonprofit health organizations make use of GIS technologies to maintain and display their data, as well as GIS groups that provide data services for those in public health.

Trust for America's Health: The archives of this organization contain numerous articles and reports offering examples of how GIS is applied to public health in many ways.

Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA): This organization held the GIS in Public Health conference from June 27 to 30 in 2011, uniting GIS professionals, public health employees and students to discuss how the technologies can better be implemented by providers of health care.

National Cancer Intelligence Network: For this British public health organization, GIS is used to provide data on the incidences, mortality and survival statistics for cancer patients in the U.K.

Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN): As an example of a typical health-related GIS project, this organization produced the AIDS Data Animation Project. It offers statistical information regarding AIDS mortality rates in the U.S. on a weekly basis from January 1981 to December 1992.

Articles discussing GIS in public health

Those who are interested in obtaining their GIS master's degree online may find articles and studies illustrating the technology's application to public health.

International Journal of Health Geographics: The archives of this periodical contain numerous articles covering how GIS is used in departments and organizations providing health services to study information directly and tangentially related to health.

Esri: The article on this webpage tracks the history of how mapping was first used in health research - as early as 1854 - and extending to the present applications of highly advanced GIS technologies to the field.