Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health and Epidemiology Course
Details
Introduction
Epidemiology seeks to determine associations between exposure risk and disease that are spatially dependent. Public health focuses on the health of populations rather than of individuals and focuses more on prevention of health problems. These efforts fall naturally within the domain of problems requiring use of spatial analysis as part of the solution, and GIS and other spatial analysis tools are therefore recognized as providing potentially transformational capabilities for Epidemiology and public health efforts.
This course is to link common public health questions with appropriate statistical procedures; to offer a strong conceptual grounding in several important statistical procedures; and to describe how to interpret the results from the statistics in ways that are principled and will be persuasive to intended audiences using simple software tools. Statistics are a mainstay in the toolkit of public health professionals. Human memory being what it is, however, even Public health professionals with reasonable statistical training, over the years, often forget the basics. If professionals are going to make sensible use of consultants, communicate effectively with funders, and understand others’ reports, then they often need at least a conceptual understanding of relatively complex, recently developed statistical techniques.
Our main goal is to help the participants acquire hands-on skills in use of Geographic Information System (GIS) as a tool to capture, store, analyze, manage, and visualize disease cases data that is geographically linked. The participants will also acquire statistical data analysis skills.
Outline
Course Content
Epidemiology and public health concepts and frameworks
- Introduction to Epidemiology and public health concepts
- Introduction to GIS in Epidemiology and public health context
- Planning for a GIS system installation
- GIS Data sources for Epidemiology and public health
- Working with a GIS software
Mobile Data Collection Technology
- Mobile Data Collection using ODK and KoBoToolbox technology
GIS data management in epidemiology and public health
- Public health and epidemiology GIS Database creation
- Data Types and Data Sources in Epidemiology and public health
- Working with GIS Data
- Working with data from different sources (databases, shapefiles and spreadsheets)
- Facilitated Practical exercises in working with GIS Data
- Styling and symbolization
Spatial mapping and Visualization in Epidemiology and Public health
- Mapping Project activities
- GIS mapping of priority public health problems (HIV and AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis)
- GIS mapping of Most At Risk Populations (MARPS)
- GIS Mapping of health facilities and health resources
GIS for monitoring in Epidemiology and public health
- GIS in Disease transmission and progression mapping
- GIS as a Decision Support System for Public Health Management (What, where, when, how and why analysis – case studies)
- Use of GIS in Epidemiology and Health Related Disaster Management (case studies or practical)
- GIS in Environmental management and Public health (case studies or practical)
Participatory GIS and use of mobile GIS
- Participatory GIS in public health
- Use of mobile GIS in health surveillance and assessments
- Integrating GIS into Electronic Medical Records (case studies or practical?)
Basic statistical data analysis for Epidemiology and Public health
- Introduction to excel
- Preparing data for analysis
- Creating a list
- Manipulating data using formulas
- Outlining and Sorting data
- Entering Data: Data Forms
- Finding Records Using Criteria
- Filtering Data
- Data Auditing
- Data validation
Graphs, Charts and Line Graphs
- Bar Charts
- Statistical Data Analysis with Excel Presentation using Pivot charts
- Descriptive Statistics
- Pivot tables
- Probability Distribution
- Hypothesis tests
Analyses
- Analyses of Variance
- Measures of Precision
- Single Factor Experiments
- Factorial Experiments
- Regression Analysis
Data Quality reporting