Google Maps Mobile for phones without GPS

Are you like me? Just slightly behind the times and don’t have a phone with GPS capabilities? Well, things have gotten a lot easier! The latest enhancement to Google Maps Mobile allows people that don’t have a GPS enabled phone to get approximate locations (within 1km) using mobile operator cell locations.

For more information about this, please view this informational video!

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Cryptosporidium Outbreak Prevention with GIS

Cryptosporidium Lifecycle

Cryptosporidium parvum is the parasitic protozoan that causes human cryptosporidiosis, as well as in certain animals, including domestic livestock. In humans it causes abdominal pain, profuse diarrhea, weight loss, loss of appetite and anorexia, but in otherwise healthy individuals the infection is usually self-limiting and resolves within a few weeks. There is no definitive cure for the disease. These protozoa complete their life cycles in a single host, and their oocysts are highly infectious. These oocysts are usually transmitted by contaminated water, fecal transmission from infected animals, person-to-person spread or contaminated food. Water treatment plants cannot usually guarantee to remove all C. parvum from water because the oocysts are very small (4-5 micrometers in diameter) and are resistant to chlorine and other disinfectants.

Preventative measures are the best hope for reducing Cryptosporidiosis outbreaks. One very important way is GIS Surveillance. For cryptosporidiosis control, GIS is currently in use in North Carolina, by the state health and veterinary medicine departments. Farm locations which are a potential source of Cryptosporidium oocysts, can be mapped against water sources such as rivers and reservoirs. Combining these with topographic data can yield information on the amount of Cryptosporidium contamination that could be expected due to runoff.

For more information on this parasite, please read all the information found at this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

The Many Uses of GIS

Local public health agencies across the country are placing greater emphasis on disease surveillance, preparedness and response coordination to combat health threats such as West Nile virus, anthrax, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and bioterrorism. GIS allows public health practitioners to put their data on a map, as a result, allowing for better monitoring of environmental health, track community health and plan programs targeted to specific areas of the community.

In 2002, Cook County, Ill., had the highest number of West Nile virus cases in the country. Residents reported 299 cases of the virus, including 17 fatalities. The high incidence rate was unusual, particularly because the county did not see any cases of the virus in 2001. Immediately, the department began using GIS to track the outbreak by mapping cases of people who had contracted the virus. As new cases emerged, the department plotted their locations in a GIS and delineated buffer zones around them. The department shared the maps with mosquito abatement districts that targeted mosquito-spraying efforts where they were most needed.

GIS is also useful for monitoring the environment. Environmental health programs rely heavily on information about the land and GIS has helped many health departments keep track of a variety of inspections. For example, the Florida Department of Health, Division of Environmental Health, has used GIS to create Internet maps for the Florida Healthy Beaches Program. The program monitors 305 beach locations in 34 coastal counties weekly for the bacterial indicators enterococcus and fecal coliform. While those bacteria may not necessarily be pathogenic, they are useful indicators of potential fecal contamination that may cause gastrointestinal illness, infections or rashes.

For more information, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Childhood Obesity Study

Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition that affects children and adolescents. It occurs when a child is well above the normal weight for his or her age and height. Childhood obesity is particularly troubling because the extra pounds often start kids on the path to health problems that were once confined to adults, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. GIS is being used to help childhood obesity by generating school-level neighborhood environmental indicators. These indicators can be used to map such things as food sources around a neighborhood or distances children must walk to and from school, or even whether there are paths to encourage exercise. All of this is important because kids today don’t get as much exercise as they should and also are choosing foods less healthy to dominate their diet. With GIS helping to fight obesity, we can recognize problems and move towards correcting them.

To review a study done on childhood obesity, please follow the link.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Tracking Systems

In Canada, the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre is on the leading edge in applying GIS to health systems by looking into combining public health with RFID tracking. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking systems have been found to be useful to track the location and movement of items as small as medicine vials throughout the new hospital as well as also be used to track expensive defibrillator equipment, wheelchairs and other items that medical personnel often find themselves spending valuable time looking for. This technology will revolutionize how the hospital operates and hopefully the use of the technology will spread to other hospitals.

For more information, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

A Message from Dr. Im @ Vertices on the Geo Challenge Grants Application

Hello, all

As you may already know Google.org is providing Geo Challenge Grants Application, where your organization can apply for $5k-100k for community mapping project. Please refer to:

http://www.google.org/geochallenge.html

https://services.google.com/inquiry/geochallenge_apply

The application due date is 12/22. You need to provide no more than 5 pages of project description, which includes

- Full project description

- Detailed budget

- People required to complete the project, including those you‘ll need to hire

- Schedule with key milestones to get completion

As you already know, we specialize in public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS), aka community mapping. If you are interested in this grant, we will support as much as we can.

To help you with ideas, you can see some of our community mapping projects:

West Windsor Bike and Pedestrian Alliance Safe Route Inventory Map

http://maps.gismap.us/wwbpa

http://wwbpa.wordpress.com

Garfield Fitness, Nutrition, and Unity Project

http://www.garfieldfun.org

New York Restroom

http://www.nyrestroom.com

Interactive Mapping Rivers

http://www.imrivers.com

or visit our PPGIS site http://www.ppgis.info

I look forward to talking to you in the few days.

Wansoo

GIS in the Study and Prevention of Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is an issue of growing concern to the public health community. Currently over 15% of young people over six years old are obese, and obesity is also increasing in children five and younger. Children are considered to be overweight if the BMI is over 85% of the weight group in their age and sex categories. If it is 95% and over, they are considered to be obese. GIS is used to understand spatial patterns of obesity in our communities and assist in preventive planning.

There are many sites that show examples of how GIS is used in the study and prevention of childhood obesity. For more information on childhood, check out the information given by the CDC. For examples of GIS mapping Childhood Obesity, check out this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

The war against SARS with GIS to the rescue

SARS is a form of atypical pneumonia. With early detection and treatment there is a high chance of recovery. Severe cases are usually seen in patients with pre-existing health problems or who seek treatment at a late stage. The main symptoms include fever (of 38 degrees Celsius or above), malaise, chills, headache and body ache. Transmission is mainly by respiratory droplets and direct contact with a patient’s secretions.

Early in the 2003 outbreak, the WHO started publishing a static, non-interactive daily world map of the “cumulative number of reported probable cases” on its SARS Web site. On these maps, affected countries with no evidence of local SARS transmission were pink-colored, while those where local SARS transmission was taking place were red-colored. The size of the graduated blue circle over an affected country on these maps reflected the cumulative number of reported cases in that country (larger circles meaning more SARS cases).

For more information about SARS, please check out this website.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

GIS4Kids: Welcome to a new experience!

GIS is such a wonderful skill to learn that many websites offer the technology to kids. GIS4Kids is a great way to help broaden the benefits of GIS to all. You will gain interactive learning skills that we will prove to benefit you in this rapidly accelerating computer age.

GIS4Kids offers several effective and easy-to-use interactive mapping applications for the classroom with the following benefits for students and teachers:

• Students are researchers – they collect, input, and analyze their own data.
• Students can share their work with peers in other schools.
• Access and interactivity at home, school or a library on any computer connected to the Internet.
• Ready to use without software installation or maintenance worries.

More information can be found at this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC