Mapping Resources:

Use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to enhance our understanding of the epidemiology of disease and the distribution and use of health and medical resources has increased rapidly in the last 5 years.

I (Kim Buttery) started using geographic information experimentally in the late 1960s, while health director in Portsmouth, Virginia.   I was assisted by Ruell Waldrop from the CDC's center for community services and John DeShaies of the Census Bureau's research center.  I presented one of the first (if not the first) lecture on applications for mapping health problems and socio-demographics at the CDC's annual conference in 1972.  These first maps were made  by sticking dots onto a map of the city, with the census tracts shaded according to economic level, then photographing them.  In 1980, while health director in Corpus Christi, Texas, I wrote my own software using Graphics-Basic  to accomplish the same ends, without posting dots on maps ( see Maxcy Rosenau's textbook of preventive medicine, 12th or 13th edition, the chapter on local health department management.   In 1982, concurrently with the advent of the IBM-PC a single user  GIS software program called 'ATLAS-GIS' came on  the market.  I was one of the earliest users of this product in the health care field.   While this product is still available, and one of the easiest to use programs that  meets the need of most health agencies, its current owner, ESRI of California, has developed its flagship program for PC use: ArcView PC.   This program is more expensive than Atlas, but has a multitude of features that allows more flexibility as well as producing enhanced presentation graphics.  It is quite a bit more expensive, and has a fairly steep learning curve, which has just been improved with the availability of inter-active on-line learning modules available from ESRI.  You might well find it useful to review the new introductory FREE GIS Mapping for Health Professionals, on the ESRI web.  You will probably be asked to set up an account, however this is FREE.  Then you should click on the course catalog and choose the course labeled as described.

VCU has training available for ArcView.  Dr Shelley Harris and Andy Lacatell (a recent MPH graduate of this program) at VCU's Center for Environmental Studies can provide additional information.

ESRI Virtual Campus.
FREE GIS Mapping for Health Professionals
WHO's GIS center
GIS Gateway
Claritas -  Introduction to GIS/Demographics
Claritas & Census 2000 Technology
Census Bureau's Home Page
Directions Magazine - Mapping (On-Line) Examples of PH Mapping.
CDC's EpiMap (this links to ArcView -see above)
GIS Mapping Videocast from CDC
       GIS in Public Health:  Using  Mapping and Spatial Analysis Technologies for Health Protection