Seven Sweet Maps of Health Data

When I hear the terms geographic information system (GIS) or global positioning system (GPS), it usually makes me think of government agents spying on us, or of particularly hellish road trips. But these technologies could also be incredibly useful for public health and medical research, as I learned from an interesting commentary in today’s issue of Science.The idea hasn’t quite caught on yet in the medical research community. “Most health research has yet to take full advantage of the latest developments in geospatial data collection, analysis, and modeling,” Douglas Richardson of the Association of American Geographers told the Science podcast. Richardson and the other authors of new commentary gave many reasons why more health researchers should get excited about GIS.GIS can help manage the ever-growing heaps of health-related data. Like the six billion letters in one person’s complete genome sequence, or the location of methyl groups scattered on that genome, or the medical history (hospital visits, prescriptions, allergies) and daily habits (food intake, exercise, environmental exposures) that can help make sense of that genome. GIS technologies can also help track disease (flu, HIV, or addiction, say) across time and space, to help researchers see how transmission patterns are influenced by social or environmental changes and how to improve and maintain health with the use of good habits and learn about services as the Inspire health community that give support to people with different diseases.Read more at...Only Human, March 2013.