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A study of the usability of CGDI in health mapping

Abstract:

Due to the recent outbreak of SARS and Bird Flu, the ability to strengthen health surveillance and control is highly appreciated. Since the health problem is strongly referenced with spatial locations, integrating geospatial technology in health study could support better decision making. Right now, the development of CGDI has shown great potential in many fields like emergency management, public health, disaster relief, transportation, land information system. Our study is to use CGDI to support online mapping of infectious disease across New Brunswick and Maine and to identify the usability of CGDI for health mapping. New Brunswick and Maine are territorial neighbors which means there are significant volumes of goods and people traveling across our international border, thus infectious agents are likely to carry from one jurisdiction to the other. In this paper, with the purpose to make infectious disease information available to officials and public for better support of disease surveillance, we developed a data model for mapping, seamlessly integrating the spatial and health data across the New Brunswick and Maine border. Many factors such as map representation level, mapping variables, data diversity and privacy are considered in the infectious disease mapping. Using Web Map Service, it enables cross-border data integration, visualization, analysis, sharing and explores the spatio-temporal trends of infectious disease outbreak with multiple partners via a distributed access network through the CGDI framework. With the evolvement of CGDI and health study, it would further facilitate the health data sharing and improve decision making …