Web Page Potpourri—health data mapping: a column devoted to informative integrative health resources on the internet

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, May, 2005 by Marjorie Roswell

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have moved to the web, enabling sophisticated display of health data. If you have interesting data to map, let me know; I'd be happy to share ideas on some tools to help get the job done.

Maps and Atlases: Public Health Maps

http://library.humboldt.edu/~rls/geospatial/pubhealth.htm

http://omni.ac.uk/browse/mesh/D020466.html

Good links collections from Humboldt State University, and the University of Nottingham.

Obesity Trends among US Adults

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/

These impressive maps display obesity trends over two decades. They are based on state-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. I recommend the PowerPoint slide presentation format.

Cancer Mortality Maps and Graphs

http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/

This site was developed by the National Cancer Institute. Click on "Customizable Mortality Maps," and be sure to view "5 year maps over time with common scale." It's also worth the wait (which can be several minutes, even with a fast connection) for the "View Map Slide Show" link, which animates the map. Can you guess which cancers have actually decreased over time? Interestingly, this site meets federal Section 508 accessibility requirements; Blind people, who can't see the maps, will still have access to the same data that sighted people have on this very well-designed site. As a result of the history of cancer research, there is a much larger dataset available of white study participants, compared to black men and women, and no data, unfortunately, for other ethnic groups.

Cardiovascular Health: An Atlas of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mortality

http://www.cdc.gov/cvh/maps/cvdatlas/atlas_mens/mens_download.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/cvh/maps/cvdatlas/atlas_womens/womens_download.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/cvh/maps/statemaps.htm

A University-CDC collaboration. Be aware that when you use the "2 maps" options, the colors unfortunately represent different values across both maps. These maps would be more easily compared if they shared a common legend.

SVGMapper

http://SVGMapper.blogspot.com/

I'm a longtime Geographic Information Systems (GIS) user. I bought my first GIS software on Valentine's Day, 1991, and I've been "smitten" ever since. I'm a brand new SVG developer, though. ("SVG" stands for Scalable Vector Graphics). I'll be using the SVG Mapper Blog both to learn and share tools for rapidly-displayed web-based data maps.

Web GIS in Practice: Interactive SVG maps of Diagnoses of Sexually Transmitted Diseases by Primary Care Trust in London, 1997-2003

http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/4/1/4

http://healthcybermap.org/PCT/STDs/

http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/main.html

This is a terrific application. The underlying data comes alive, revealing at once the disease rates across multiple areas and multiple years. The software used to create this costs [pounds sterling]8000 (more than $15,000), with a [pounds sterling]2000 ($3800) annual fee. (I aim to do similar work, hopefully without the hefty price tag. I can't predict if it'll be of equivalent quality.) I encourage you to download and install the Adobe SVG viewer--which is free!--in order to view these maps.

Resources for Creating Public Health Maps

http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/maps.htm

The CDC Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics offers a good set of links to free resources. Among the many links there, don't miss Epi Info[TM], GIS freeware developed at CDC.

Interactive Health Atlas

http://www.leeds.nhs.uk/professional/healthatlas/

The LEEDS Health Atlas is one of the top-notch interactive health atlases, developed using a tool called InstantAtlas.com. Again, for SVG maps, until support is built into your browser, you'll need to install an SVG Viewer, such as the Adobe one above. (The download and installation takes under a minute.) This Atlas includes innovations I've never seen in other maps. For instance, when you select a color class in the legend, all the data associated with that class (data range) gets selected in both the table, and the map. In this way, the data, the map, the bar chart, and the legend are all linked. The data underlying these maps is an Excel spreadsheet, but wow, how that spreadsheet comes alive in this rich environment.

EpiQMS

http://app2.health.state.pa.us/epiqms/

http://app2.health.state.pa.us/epiqms/EpiQMSHelp/

DGEpiQMSHELP.htm

This is the Pennsylvania Department of Health's Epidemiologic Query and Mapping System, originally developed by the Washington Department of Health. It's an awesome mapping and charting tool offering public access to birth, death, population, and cancer incidence data. Interactive chart capability is also offered for the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). I've included a link to the help screens, to help you to understand the scope of this system.

ColorBrewer

http://www.ColorBrewer.org/

This terrific Flash application will help you choose colors for maps that lend themselves to the data, that photocopy well, that will maintain consistent colors when displayed on a screen projector, and that color-blind people can see. The helpful research on color in maps was done under a grant from the National Science Foundation by Dr. Cynthia Brewer.