GIS and public health
He continued to analyze his data, eventually showing that the incidence rate of cholera was also related to local elevation as well as soil type and alkalinity.
Snow attributed to the pools of water that tended to collect there, again showing evidence that cholera was in fact a water-borne disease (rather than one borne by 'miasma' as was commonly believed at the time.
Snow faced, and researchers today depend on modern GIS and other computer mapping applications to assist in their analyses.
[3] As part of that effort, a GIS – or more generally a spatial decision support system (SDSS) – offers improved geographic visualization techniques, leading to faster, better, and more robust understanding and decision-making capabilities in the public health arena.
[5] For example, GIS displays have been used to show engagement with online health information during infectious disease pandemics,[6] as well as associations between clusters of emergent Hepatitis C cases and those of known intravenous drug users in Connecticut.
For example, the distributions of both birth defects and infant mortality in Iowa were studied, and the researchers found no relationship in those data.
[8] This led to the conclusion that birth defects and infant mortality are likely unrelated, and are likely due to different causes and risk factors.
Use of GIS displays and related databases raises the potential of compromising those privacy standards, so some precautions are necessary to avoid pinpointing individuals based on spatial data.
For example, data may need to be aggregated to cover larger areas such as a census tract or county, helping to mask individual identities.
Their assertion was that ZIP codes were designed for a purpose unrelated to public health issues, and so use of these arbitrary boundaries might lead to inappropriate groupings and then to incorrect conclusions.
Many researchers and practitioners are concentrating of this effort, hoping that the benefits outweigh the risks and the costs associated with this emerging application area for modern GIS techniques.
