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Geospatial services for decision support on public health

Abstract:

Sharing of health information is critical for preventing disease, responding to emergencies, educating the public and policy makers. Protecting privacy and confidentiality of health information remain important cornerstones of the public health system, however many health professionals and authorities do not have the ability to visualize health information to make time-sensitive decisions, since they do not have the time, money, or skills to statistically analyze vast amounts of distributed data and render aggregated results into a geographic interface for quick interpretation. The technology to do so, web based geographic information systems and related standards, has matured yet confidence in such technology to visualize or share health information is only beginning to emerge. Currently, four major problems still exist in health geographic applications. They are related to health mapping methods, mapping variables, reusability of health applications, and interoperability issues. To handle these problems, we designed a Health Representation XML schema and SOA based architecture to support health data sharing and representation. The schema makes it possible to exchange the statistical results of health data as well as representation through XML and GML. The OGC services such as WMS, WFS, and WPS enable the statistical exploration and representation of health information. A Web-portal is developed to support the integration of different services for visualization of health maps, hypothesis generation, and decision making. This architecture provides quick access to spatial and health data for understanding the trends in diseases, and promotes the growth and enrichment of the SDI in the public health sector.