ACM TechNews
Software Maps Rwandan Health
BBC News (07/16/08)
The Geographic Information Systems (GIS), led by Max Baber from the
University of Redlands in California, is using a system of electronic
mapping to lay many different types of data onto a single image to track
and predict disease outbreaks in Rwanda. GIS can be used to help
developing countries best utilize their limited resources, such as drinking
water. Baber says roads, power lines, and buildings can be digitized in
GIS, along with attribute information on the buildings, such as if they are
residential or commercial. Combining such information on a map allows for
correlations that otherwise might have been missed to be found and
exploited. Information collected in Rwanda includes the locations of
health services, water, and electricity supplies, and how many cases of
illnesses such as malaria have occurred in different parts of the country.
The interactive layers of the map can be used to plan where specific health
services should be deployed. "Once you start to gather the data and tie it
down to its location, then you can start to see relationships between
things like access to unclean water and the impact unclean water is having
on health in those locations" says Baber. So far, the system has allowed
Rwandan health workers to track the number of malaria cases at each health
facility, where malaria is increasing or decreasing, and where people are
most at risk. GIS can also be used to determine the energy needs of a
town, the effect of heavy industry on the environment, or the impact of
deforestation on carbon dioxide emissions. The biggest challenge of using
GIS is collecting enough information to make the databases reliable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7505774.stm
© Copyright 2008 Information, Inc. This service may be reproduced for internal distribution.