The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), in partnership with the American Public Health Association (APHA), is pleased to announce the 2016 GIS and Health Symposium. The theme for this year’s Symposium is “Mapping the Way to Healthy Communities”. Attend to discuss and share information about the important topics impacting the health of our communities worldwide and how GIS is being used as to facilitate decisions and action.
May 27 is the deadline to register at the discounted rate. Creating an attendee profile within Sched DOES NOT REGISTER you for the conference or specific workshops. You must register for the conference here.
Instructor: Jacqueline W. Curtis, Kent State University
Attendance at this workshop will offer:
3.5 AICP credits, pending approval.
3.5 CPH credits, pending NBPHE approval.
Learning objectives: At the end of this workshop participants will have an understanding of the benefits and limitations in integrating sketch maps into a GIS for tasks where spatial public perception data are needed, especially Health Impact Assessments (HIAs). By taking this workshop, participants will be prepared to begin the collection, and analysis of their own sketch map data suitable for GIS analysis.
Workshop Overview: Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) are rapidly becoming a standard tool to evaluate potential health outcomes of proposed planning or policy initiatives across the United States. Community input is a key piece of the assessment, but can be challenging to systematically and spatially collect and analyze in a way that provides authoritative and actionable data. Sketch maps of local knowledge (e.g., assets) and perceptions (e.g., fear of crime) provide an approach through which such data can be integrated in the HIA. This workshop will teach approaches for this form of spatial data collection and relevant spatial analytical techniques to accommodate a variety of HIA topics and stakeholder characteristics. Overall, it will illustrate the benefits of integrating sketch maps with GIS in combination with a methodological approach that results in the creation and analysis of otherwise unavailable spatial layers. For this workshop, the methodological approach will include creating survey instruments designed with a focus on capturing spatial environmental perception data, digitizing the survey data into a GIS, and then performing basic spatial analyses to identify hot spots of shared perceptions or other local insights. Focus will be given to potential uses in the HIA stages of conducting assessment, developing recommendations, reporting, and monitoring/evaluation. Proceedings will begin with several examples drawn from ongoing projects being conducted through the GIS, Health & Hazards Lab at Kent State University (http://www.kent.edu/ghhlab).
Case studies include understanding youth fear of crime, as well as relevant environmental perceptions for HIAs on trail development, Safe Routes to School, and environmental justice studies. These examples will provide application of a consistent research frame which includes a detailed step-by-step progression through data collection to spatial analysis to using these maps in reporting and stakeholder meetings.
Participants will provide their own laptop to facilitate participation in a worked exercise.Instructors:
Teresa Townsend, AICP, Planning Communities, CEO, Raleigh, NC
Ann Steedly, Chief Operations Officer, Planning Communities, LLC, Raleigh, NC
Attendance at this workshop will offer:
3.5 AICP credits, pending approval
4.0 CPH credits, pending NBPHE approval.
Learning Objectives: Provide participants an understanding of the factors that define the health of a community by examining health data to support a community planning process. Participants will be equipped with the tools to integrate health considerations into establishment of plan goals, objectives and performance measures.
Attendance at this session will offer 1.5 AICP credits, pending approval.
Session presentations will highlight the use of GIS to examine the intersection of health and socio-geographic factors. GIS-based evaluations are supporting the identification of differences in health outcomes associated with variations in the availability of community resources and social capital.
Attendance at this session will offer:
1.5 AICP credits, pending approval
1.5 CPH credits, pending NBPHE approval.
Panelists:
Liora Sahar, Director, Evaluation Informatics, American Cancer Society, Inc., Atlanta, GA United States
Stephanie Foster, MPH, MA, Epidemiologist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA United States
Lisa M. Stevens, Ph.D., Deputy Director for Planning and Operations, Center for Global Health, NCI, OD, Rockville, MD United States
David Stinchcomb, Westat, Rockville, MD United States
GIS and Mapping Support for the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa
The widespread outbreak of Ebola virus in 2014 was one of the most challenging and acute public health crises of modern time. Mapping and spatial intelligence were critical to meeting the objective of responding to and halting the spread of Ebola. Unfortunately, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries with the most severe outbreaks, also suffered from a lack of both public health and information technology infrastructure. Support for these nations came from many groups, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United Nation emergency health mission, the World Health Organization and many other governmental and non-governmental agencies. In this session, we have a group of people who contributed to mapping and related support during the emergency response to the recent Ebola outbreak.
Attendance at this session will offer 1.25 AICP credits, pending approval.
Panelists