Public Health Symposium.

The 13th Annual Public Health Symposium is only a week away from today. This event will be on Monday, April 7,2008 in Piscataway, NJ at UMDNJ- West Lecture Hall Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. It will beging at 4:00 pm. space is limited. Call now at 732-235-2866 to get more information about this event.

GIS and Epidemiology

GIS is a useful tool in elucidating patterns and relationships between the person, place, and time components of epidemiologist data. In addition, the most direct use of GIS technology is as a tool for understanding and displaying disease or disease risk that are related directly to environmental exposure (Lloyd252). The Public Health Research Laboratories (PHRL) uses epidemiology in conjunction with GIS in the following areas: 1) Bioterrorism prevention/planning, surveillance, and response. 2) Communicable disease control. 3) Environmental epidemiology. 4) Refugee Health. 5) Incorporation of GIS into epidemiology research and performing descriptive and analytic studies of epidemiology of diseases. 6) Investigation of disease clusters (phrl.org).

~ Evens

Using GIS Technology to Track Virus Prevalence

For the past two years, Genital human papilloma virus (HPV) infection was estimated to be one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. There are two common presentations of genital HPV infection: Exophytic warts cause visible growths on the genitalia of both men and women. Subclinical warts cause by HPV strains which are linked to genital cancers(esri). Due to the state’s large population and  availability of state hospital data to validate results , California was chosen for HPV prevalence assessment.Click here to see the map. 

~Evens

Malaria Atlas Project

The Malaria Atlas Project is a research project that was done at Oxford University. It included information dating back to the 80’s.  This map gives us a better understanding of the places where malaria can be found throughout the world. Click here to get more information.

~ Evens

ProMED Reports.

The Keyhole Markup Language ( KML) keep us up to date with the latest worldwide  Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases Reports and where they related too. These reports help epidemiologist to view the trends of  many diseases and  to have a better Public Health  Surveillance. This  map help us to locate these ProMED Reports and the countries these reports are about. The brown circles indicate the locations.

Watch The Spread of Bird Flu.

This map shows us how the Bird Flu spread throughout Europe. It started from Asia and spread all over Europe. Over the past year, the illness has killed 45 people in Asia. According to Tom Skinner, CDC spokesperson, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking the threat of a possible pandemic “very seriously” and is working closely with the global health community to quickly detect any emergence of the new strain. However, the mortality rate among identified patients who contact the disease from chickens and ducks is about 72 percent (cdc).

~ Evens

Rabies Awareness.

Rabies is an infectious disease transmittable from animal to human and vice-versa. It is a serious viral zoonotic and often fatal. The World Rabies Day will be On September 28, 2008. The main goal of this event is to raise awareness of the disease and ways in which it can be prevented through the world. Explore where the events will take place around the world.

Air Quality Index Information In Google Earth Format

Evironmental Protection Agencies( EPA) provides Air Quality Index (AQI) information in the Google Earth format.  EPA, in collaboration with states and local governments, provide Air Quality Index forecast and conditions for more than 320 cities across the United States. This Google Map contains facility level information  for this following seven major point sources sector(epa.gov).1)      Cement Facilities2)     Chemical Manufacturing3)      Electric Generating Units4)      Natural Gas Pipelines5)      Oil and Gas Productions6)      Petroleum Refineries7)      Pulp& Paper Industries. 

Click here to learn more about Air Quality Index(AQI) In google Earth.                     

   By Evens

Tracking Dengue Fever In Singapore

         SinGeo that is a new blog highlighted google earth resources relating to Singapore has put together a very useful geographical presentation of Dengue Fever in Singapore. Dengue fever is a febrile illness that affects infants, young children and adults. Dengue is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito infected with any one of the four-dengue viruses. It occurs in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Symptoms appear 3 to 14 days after the infective bite (WHO). Through this map, we can see where in Singapore Dengue Fever has occurred in the year of 2007.

By Evens

Influenza and Pneumonia

This google map shows influenza and pneumonia (I&P) seasonality circulation throughout Brazil by modeling influenza related mortality and laboratory surveillance data. It provides information for monthly time series of I&P mortality for each of the 27 Brazilian states, started from December 31, 1996 to December 31 1999. One of the most important things to notice is how the influenza and pneumonia circulations match with the coldest season in the South, but not in the Equatorial region. De trended times series were analyzed to describe the amplitude and timing of annual and semiannual epidemic cycles. Each year, in each Brazilian state, mortality data were transforming from zero to one for a better visualization (Alonso).

By Evens