From reh0303@doh.wa.gov Mon Mar 29 13:30:41 1999 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id NAA11764 for ; Mon, 29 Mar 1999 13:30:40 -0800 Received: from smtp.doh.wa.gov (hub.doh.wa.gov [192.230.1.5]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with SMTP id NAA13765 for ; Mon, 29 Mar 1999 13:30:39 -0800 Received: from Connect2 Message Router by smtp.doh.wa.gov via Connect2-SMTP 4.00; Mon, 29 Mar 99 13:30:10 -0800 Message-ID: <81057E4A014C3700@smtp.doh.wa.gov> In-Reply-To: <80057E4A014C3700> Date: Mon, 29 Mar 99 13:31:58 -0800 From: "Hoskins, Richard E." Sender: "Hoskins, Richard E." To: ph-assess@u.washington.edu Subject: RE: Basic Epi Training X-mailer: Connect2-SMTP 4.00 MHS to SMTP Gateway Combining GIS and epidemiology is a great way for people to visualize what is happening in their area no matter what the geography scale is, county, Zipcode, census tract, or even at the street level. There is more and more data available and reasonably priced GIS software that a non-specialist can use with a day's training. And most of that is learning effective ways to present public health data on a map ... that is descriptive epidemiology. A table of numbers is of course useful and must always be available, but when people have maps of disease and death rates, maps of environmental hazards, maps of school violence in a counties school districts, etc. a lot of common sense analysis (called "spatial analysis" ) can be done without complicated statistics. Further I have all kinds of notions about how to deal with small number problems that are pretty easy to implement - you can have my computer programs for nothing. Actually a lot of it for every county, Zipcode, census tract has been done already. If you are a VISTA user it's pretty simple to download data and start making maps. Lots of counties have GIS data available already. I can show you how to use it in your assessment activity or whatever you need. This training is available for local health ... although we have never really formally organized it. I can imagine scenarios of my coming to you or you coming here. My going there can likely be covered somehow from this end, it involves gas and a night in a motel. I have a 4 wheel drive and chains; I have no problem coming over the passes. I can do a course on whatever computers you have. I can run the GIS programs I recommend on a 486/50. Of course a faster computer is ... faster. It doesn't have to be a fancy computer lab, although that is always nice. The data I use is real data. With the usual datasharing agreements I can bring data with me for your county or district that is geocoded to the street level and ready to map. Also I have population data block group up age x race x sex x ethnicity for 1990 and projected past 2000 produced by Claritas Inc. For local health it is available for no cost. Most people have a notion that GIS is hard to learn, expensive and requires a specialist to do it for you. Not true. There are very good GIS programs available for $400. I just got one for $100 and it looks like it will have excellent potential for public health GIS & mapping. You likely do not need more than 1 or 2 copies. If you have a simple deskjet printer you can make superb publication quality maps. On special arrangement we can make big (4' and larger) here. Suppose you could take VISTA output, or anything else you have and turn it into maps for meetings, publications, or web sites? But there is more to it than just maps. Its kind of the higher end of descriptive epidemiology. Richard E. Hoskins GIS & Spatial Epi Unit Office of Epidemiology WA State Dept of Heath eMAIL: REH0303@doh.wa.gov tel: 360-236-4270 fax:360-236-4245 .