Global Health Atlas

Have you ever stopped by The World Health Organization lately? The WHO has created a Communicable Disease Global Atlas that shows analysis and comparison of standardized data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The data reports document on the major diseases of poverty such as tuberculosis, the diseases on their way towards eradication and elimination (such as guinea worm, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis) and epidemic prone and emerging infections for example meningitis, cholera, yellow fever and anti-infective drug resistance.

This site is very interesting so to check it out, please follow this link.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Malaria in Kenya

The Life Cycle of Malaria

If you are interested in the study of Malaria, I recently came upon a paper that describes the use of GIS and GPS in differential mode to obtain highly accurate longitudes, latitudes, and altitudes of geographic locations of interest associated with a longitudinal study of malaria in western Kenya.

The paper can be viewed at this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Cyanobacteria Blooms

Microcystis aeruginosa Bloom in Coffee Pot Bayou, St. Petersburg, Florida

Cyanobacteria (or blue-green algae) are commonly found in Florida’s lakes, rivers, and estuaries. Some species can produce toxins that affect public health and the environment. The state legislature recognized the need to assess the status of toxic microalgae in Florida and in 1998 funded the Florida Harmful Algal Bloom Task Force (FLHABTF) to address potential concerns regarding microalgae, including cyanobacteria. Several groups of toxic cyanobacteria have been detected in Florida’s aquatic systems but among three specific genera, Microcystis, Anabaena, and Cylindrospermopsis, toxins levels produce were very high and all located themselves in Florida freshwater systems and surface waters used for drinking water. If ingested, contaminated water can cause nausea, vomiting, and, in severe cases, acute liver failure. Although the presence of cyanobacterial toxins in reservoir systems used for drinking water is of potential concern in Florida, no illnesses directly related to drinking water containing these toxins have been documented.

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

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

GIS & Google Earth Tracking the polio virus down the Congo River

The extensive growth of technology and access to millions of people all over the world has allowed for GIS in public health to become a big and still growing field. The added use of Google Earth also makes this possible because it allows us to map infrastructure especially for public health. The link below is to a paper explaining that through polio eradication activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, this is how Google Earth can be used as a planning tool to later generate public health maps.

Case Study on Tracking the polio virus down the Congo River.

Melissa Lawrence

Rutgers Student Intern (Vertices)

Mississippi obesity fight!

The Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi and Healthy Congregations gave a $218,638 grant to be used in the local fight against childhood obesity awarded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The community foundation’s Get A Life! Campaign, which targets childhood obesity, will use the grant to fund the campaign’s faith-based initiative, Healthy Congregations.

The mission of the faith-based coalition is to provide access to safe places of play for children and access to affordable, healthy food. The goal is to have kids eat right and exercise. The coalition has already expanded its influence to more than 400 churches in the eight counties across Northwest Mississippi. The grant will greatly help the cause and hopefully cause other states to make larger efforts in eradicating obesity.

For more information, please read the full article here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program

In 1984, a deadly cloud of methyl isocyanate killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India. Shortly thereafter, there was a serious chemical release at a sister plant in West Virginia. Because of these two tragic incidents, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) was enacted in 1986.EPCRA’s primary purpose is to inform communities and citizens of chemical hazards in their areas. The EPA and each State is required to annually collect data on releases and transfers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities, and make the data available to the public in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The goal of TRI is to empower citizens, through information by the use of GIS, to hold companies and local governments accountable in terms of how toxic chemicals are managed.

For more information, please view the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program website.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

A Proposal for National Economic Recovery An Investment in Geospatial Information Infrastructure Building a National GIS

There are so many ideas and plans being given to try to fix the current economic crisis in the United States. But did you ever think about GIS being the answer? A proposal to invest in GIS as a method of recovery is being floated around. It was put forth by Jack Dangermond of ESRI and Anne Hale Miglarese of Booze Allen Hamilton. The authors argue that creating “A National GIS, properly designed and effectively implemented, providing public access and using best technologies, will speed economic recovery by producing jobs and putting shovels in the ground more quickly.”

For more information, please read the full Proposal for National Economic Recovery.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Dracunculiasis

Dracunculiasis, more commonly known as Guinea worm disease (GWD), is a preventable infection caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Infection affects poor communities in remote parts of Africa that do not have safe water to drink. In 1986, an estimated 3.5 million people were infected annually. In 2007, only 9,585 cases of GWD were reported.

The WHO teamed with GIS has established a national program to help eradicate the illness. The program has allowed for the mapping of the epidemiological situation at village level and a visualization and analysis of the data in relation to other key parameters such as water supply, access to health services and filter distribution.

Because of the system, it is now easier to systematically track all villages under surveillance, quickly identify newly infected and re-infected villages, rapidly detect cases to allow for immediate response and containment of cases, effectively target resources to those communities most in need, monitor progress towards eradication and prepare for certification of eradication.

For more information, please read about the eradication of Dracunculiasis here.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

GeoCaching

Geocaching

Ever heard of Geocaching? Well its an outdoor treasure-hunting game where the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value. It is enjoyed by all ages and is great for kids because it allows them to exercise while having tons of fun.

For more information, check out geocaching.com.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC

Geographic Profiling

Geographic profiling

Geographic profiling is an investigative methodology that uses the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence. So basically, the concept proposes that criminals tend to commit acts of crimes within a comfort zone located near but not too close to their residence.

The system produces a map of the most probable location of the criminal’s centre of activity, which in most cases is the offender’s residence. When linked with additional information relating to the crime incidents, and with additional data sources, such as motor vehicles databases and suspect databases, geographic profiling has been proven to have a profound impact on the effectiveness of a police investigation.

It is generally applied in cases of serial murder, rape, arson, and robbery, though it can be used in single crimes (auto theft, burglary bombing, etc.) that involve multiple scenes or other significant geographic characteristics. So when a perpetrator has at least five or six incidents traceable back to them, the methodology allows for a reduction of the search area for the criminal’s residence by more than 90 percent, thus a better chance of a perpetrator getting caught.

For some background information on Geoprofiling, please check this site.

Melissa Lawrence, Rutgers Student Intern, VERTICES, LLC