Brush Water Educates

The Brush source water protection team has recently agreed that a campaign to educate the public about preventing and cleaning up contaminants would be one of the best management approaches to preserve the city’s water. In terms of educating, the public should know when and how to notify emergency responders if a spill occurs within the source water protection area.

For more information on how The Brush Source water protection team is making changes for the better, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

The March of Dimes helps New Moms

The March of Dimes in Michigan granted nearly $1 million this year to help reduce premature births and infant deaths. The organizations will start a support group, allow free rentals of breast pumps for qualifying women and help keep babies safe by providing needy moms with portable cribs.

Saginaw County’s Infant Mortality Coalition also is working with Susan Grady, a geography professor at Michigan State University and former neonatal nurse who is using county infant death rates and other health and population data to map preterm birth, mortality rates and so on to show concentrations and racial divides. There continues to be a disparity between white and black babies dying in Saginaw County, with a ratio of black to white infant deaths of 2.5 to 1 for 2006. The use of the technology will help gives answers to why this is happening.

She also plans to use GIS mapping to show where chronic disease, environmental hazards and crime overlaps, hopefully improving the health and lives of the people in the county.

For more information on the March of Dimes and their work to help new moms, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

2008 Health GIS Conference

GIS: Shaping Global Health

More than 400 health and human services professionals are expected to gather for the 2008 Health GIS Conference. This event is dedicated to improving health and human services worldwide. Professionals will share and discuss successful approaches to using geography to improve health care delivery; public health; and hospital preparedness, research, management, and policy decisions.

Event date: September 28–October 1, 2008
Location: Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel
Washington, DC

For more information, please check this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Hurricane Dolly Hits Texas

Dolly pours rain on San Benito, Texas in the southernmost tip of the state.

A 16 member Emergency Response Strike Team from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has entered into Dolly Territory since the hurricane smashed its way through South Texas on Wednesday afternoon, flooding streets, snapping trees and downing power lines, leaving more than 152,000 residents without electricity. Equipped with a mobile command post, a Lab/GIS trailer, and a communications trailer, the team has deployed to the Rio Grande Valley to assist with damage assessment.

For more information on what is happening in Texas due to Hurricane Dolly, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

GIS in Yemen Provinces

Yemen provinces are getting a crash course in GIS 101. Yemen Partners for Health Reforms (PHP), a United States Agency funded project, is training decision makers in the Health Ministry Bureau about GIS in order for officials to be able to map the health medical centers in Yemen provinces. The goal is that teaching GIS will help the health situation in all the country’s provinces and improve health conditions among the people.

The GIS system for the provinces contain all the health centers and hospitals in Yemen’s provinces and has all the data needed for the equipment of these health centers, such as the health officials, the geographical location and what it has and lacks in terms of services. Having this information will help the decision makers in the Health Ministry and its bureau to make the right decisions because the information is easily accessible for the system.

For more information about GIS use in Yemen provinces, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Improved health in Farmington, Maine

FARMINGTON, Maine, for the past 16 years, has asked the community to tell them how they can make Franklin County a better place to live. In response to past survey requests, local schools have been engaged in programs that promote healthy eating as well as exercise. These programs encourage children eat more fresh produce and to choose outdoor activities instead of sitting in front of televisions, computers, and video games.

For more information on how Farmington is changing their community, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

EMS System using GIS for China

Shenzhen City has gotten a contract recently to begin a 120 Emergency Medical Service (EMS) GIS Command and Coordination System (the “Shenzhen EMS Coordination System”). The Shenzhen EMS Coordination System will add another module to the Company’s Police-use GIS (“PGIS”) solutions, providing the most comprehensive solution set for emergency responders in China. Features will include a focus on ambulatory emergency response functions, similar to computer aided dispatch (CAD) systems used to support 911 dispatchers in the United States. The new system is hoped to greatly improve the efficiency of Shenzhen City’s 120 Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Center by better coordinating its medical resources and accelerating its public response time, to the enhanced health and benefit of Shenzhen City residents.

For more information on this new system China is developing, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Geographical Ties To Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Cases Among 1991 Gulf War Veterans

Is there a geographical pattern to help explain why 1991 Gulf War veterans contracted the fatal neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS – Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) at twice the normal rate during the decade after the conflict? This is what researchers are trying to find out. Using geographic information systems (GIS) to study environmental health problems researchers have made a break through in the case. By layering military records of troop locations onto Gulf-area maps, it was found that there were some areas of service where there appears to be an elevated risk.

Another study has also found that the risk for developing ALS has now decreased among 1991 Gulf War vets. That suggests that the cause or causes of the ALS had something to do with their deployment in the region between August 1990 and July 1991.

Of the 135 cases diagnosed among the vets within 11 years after the war, only three had a family history of the disease. The small numbers might indicate that there is an environmental cause for ALS.

For more information on this story, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Mapping to the next level

WhoIsSick.org

GIS-mapping is now being used for very local surveillance all over the world. This idea was the inspiration for WhoIsSick.org, a private project by California software engineer PT Lee that aggregates personal reports of illness into “crowd sourced” snapshots of local disease trends. It was also used recently by the Toronto Star, whose “Map of the Week” project plotted the vaccination-exemption rates of local schools to suggest where an ongoing measles outbreak might strike next. And in the July/August issue of Public Health Reports, researchers from Medical and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the map the location and quality of food sources and exercise areas to illuminate local rates of diabetes and obesity.

For more information on the revolution of GIS-mapping, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Mapping out airbase management

The UK is providing airbase managers with a single computerised view of the entire airfield, encompassing all infrastructure, maintenance and operations. How are they doing all of this? By using GIS technology; ESRI supplies geographic information systems (GIS) that bring together maps and other information into a single computer-based model. With GIS usage, an airbase can be managed more effectively with greater control and co-ordination of resources.

For more information in this technological advancement, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC