GIS Applications in Public Health Training Course

Participants can select suitable spatial data models and coordinate reference systems.

• Points, lines and polygons representing health events and service boundaries
• Raster cells representing elevation, land cover, rainfall and exposure surfaces
• Coordinate reference systems, datums and projected coordinate system selection
• Latitude-longitude coordinates versus projected metres for distance measurement
• Scale, resolution and positional accuracy in health mapping
• Layer naming conventions and folder structures for reproducible projects

Participants can assess data sources and document fitness for intended analysis.

• Routine surveillance records, registries, surveys and facility reporting systems
• Census populations, administrative boundaries and small-area deprivation indicators
• OpenStreetMap, satellite imagery and environmental monitoring data sources
• ISO 19115 metadata elements for spatial health datasets
• Data provenance, update frequency and collection-method limitations
• Fitness-for-purpose assessment against the proposed public health question

Participants can clean and prepare location-linked health data for analysis.

• Field profiling for missing values, duplicates and invalid geographic codes
• Standardising dates, administrative names and categorical health variables
• Validating geometry, repairing polygons and checking boundary topology
• Detecting coordinate outliers with extent checks and visual inspection
• Join keys, lookup tables and controlled geographic naming conventions
• Documenting transformations in a reproducible data preparation log

Participants can geocode health records and evaluate match quality.

• Address standardisation before geocoding patient, facility and event records
• Batch geocoding workflows using reference addresses and locator services
• Match scores, candidate review and unmatched-record resolution procedures
• Manual correction rules for incomplete, ambiguous and informal addresses
• Positional uncertainty recorded for geocoded health event locations
• Aggregation alternatives when household-level coordinates are unavailable

Participants can apply privacy controls to geographic health information products.

• Identifiability risks from household points, rare conditions and small counts
• Minimum cell-size rules, suppression and secondary suppression methods
• Aggregation, jittering and masking choices for public map publication
• Data minimisation principles for location-linked health records
• Role-based access controls and secure storage for sensitive datasets
• Ethical review questions for mapping vulnerable and stigmatised populations

Participants can calculate geographically comparable public health indicators.

• Crude rates calculated from events, population denominators and time periods
• Age-specific rates and demographic composition effects on comparison
• Direct age standardisation using a selected standard population
• Indirect standardisation and standardised mortality ratio interpretation
• Small-number instability, confidence intervals and rate smoothing rationale
• Denominator alignment with case definitions and geographic boundaries

Participants can create interpretable thematic maps for public health audiences.

• Choropleth maps using rates rather than raw event counts
• Natural breaks, quantiles and equal intervals for classification
• Sequential, diverging and categorical colour schemes for health variables
• Proportional symbols and dot density for event distribution
• Legends, titles, sources and north arrows supporting interpretation
• Map layout review for accessibility, readability and decision relevance

Participants can combine health and contextual layers to answer location questions.

• Attribute queries selecting cases by date, diagnosis and demographic characteristics
• Spatial selection identifying events within administrative or service boundaries
• Buffer analysis around hazards, facilities and incident locations
• Intersect operations combining population, exposure and health outcome layers
• Dissolve and clip tools preparing reporting-area datasets
• Overlay result validation through counts, maps and boundary checks

Participants can map service locations and examine catchment patterns.

• Facility inventories including service type, capacity and operating hours
• Catchment areas derived from utilisation records and patient origins
• Thiessen polygons for preliminary nearest-facility service territories
• Facility-to-population ratios for comparing local service provision
• Referral pathways mapped between community, primary and specialist services
• Catchment limitations caused by roads, costs and patient preferences

Participants can model travel-based access to health services.

• Road network preparation with travel speeds, restrictions and connectivity
• Service areas calculated by travel time from health facilities
• Origin-destination matrices measuring journeys from populations to services
• Closest-facility analysis for emergency, maternal and vaccination services
• Two-step floating catchment area method for spatial accessibility
• Interpreting access results alongside affordability, acceptability and availability

Participants can describe disease distributions without making unsupported inferences.

• Point pattern maps distinguishing cases, rates and reporting locations
• Kernel density estimation for visualising concentrated event patterns
• Nearest-neighbour index for assessing point clustering patterns
• Spatial autocorrelation concepts: similarity among nearby geographic areas
• Global Moran's I interpretation for area-based health indicators
• Ecological fallacy and cautious interpretation of area-level associations

Participants can identify and communicate statistically significant spatial clusters.

• Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot analysis for local concentration detection
• Local Moran's I clusters and spatial outlier interpretation
• Neighbour definitions using contiguity, distance bands and k-nearest neighbours
• Permutation testing, p-values and multiple-testing caution
• Temporal windows for detecting changing outbreak locations
• Cluster investigation briefings separating signals from confirmed causes

Participants can assess potential environmental exposures using spatial analysis methods.

• Buffer zones around industrial sites, water sources and transport corridors
• Land-use regression inputs for estimating environmental exposure patterns
• Raster reclassification for hazard severity and exposure scoring
• Weighted overlay models combining environmental and population vulnerability factors
• Remote sensing indicators supporting heat, vegetation and flood assessment
• Exposure maps interpreted with measurement uncertainty and temporal variation

Participants can analyse geographic inequities in health outcomes and service access.

• Deprivation indices mapped alongside health outcomes and service coverage
• Equity stratifiers including age, disability, income and rurality
• Bivariate maps comparing need, access and intervention reach
• Priority areas identified through need-capacity gap analysis
• Community assets mapped alongside risks and service deficits
• Equity interpretations avoiding deficit narratives and inappropriate labelling

Participants can incorporate time into geographic surveillance and response analysis.

• Time-enabled layers displaying cases, alerts and interventions chronologically
• Epidemic curves linked to mapped locations and reporting periods
• Space-time cubes summarising events by place and interval
• Seasonal patterns compared across districts and population groups
• Data latency assessment for near-real-time surveillance reporting
• Situation maps distinguishing onset date, notification date and report date

Participants can build raster-based models for public health planning questions.

• Raster resolution selected for available data and decision scale
• Euclidean distance surfaces measuring proximity to hazards or facilities
• Cost-distance analysis incorporating terrain, land cover and travel barriers
• Raster calculator expressions combining standardised planning criteria
• Multi-criteria decision analysis with documented weighting assumptions
• Suitability outputs tested through sensitivity analysis and stakeholder review

Participants can plan secure GIS information products for operational use.

• Web map design for authorised operational and public audiences
• Dashboard indicators linking maps, charts, filters and alert thresholds
• Field data forms capturing location, observations and validation rules
• Offline collection workflows for remote health and humanitarian settings
• User permissions controlling editing, viewing and data download access
• Publication checks for privacy, metadata and map refresh schedules

Participants can present GIS findings with clear methods, limitations and recommendations.

• Decision-focused map selection for executives, clinicians and community stakeholders
• Methods statements describing data sources, dates and analytical choices
• Uncertainty communication using confidence intervals, caveats and annotations
• Recommendations linked explicitly to geographic findings and operational constraints
• Map critique criteria covering accuracy, clarity, equity and confidentiality
• Briefing structures for outbreak response, service planning and funding decisions

Participants can plan and quality-assure a public health GIS project.

• Project charter defining decision owner, question, scope and outputs
• Analysis plan specifying datasets, methods, assumptions and acceptance criteria
• Data dictionary documenting fields, definitions, sources and update cycles
• Quality assurance checks for joins, projections, calculations and layouts
• Peer review protocol for analytical validity and privacy compliance
• Version control practices for datasets, scripts, maps and reports

Participants can build, review and present a complete GIS analysis addressing a defined public health decision.

• Define a decision question, population, geography and intervention context
• Prepare source data using documented quality, geocoding and privacy controls
• Calculate indicators and select methods suited to the decision question
• Build maps and spatial analyses supporting defensible findings
• Review outputs against analytical, ethical and communication quality criteria
• Present a decision briefing with recommendations, limitations and next actions