From rhoskins@home.com Thu May 6 13:30:06 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id NAA27472 for ; Thu, 6 May 1999 13:30:05 -0700 Received: from ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com (siteadm@ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com [24.0.2.66]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id NAA19573 for ; Thu, 6 May 1999 13:30:04 -0700 Received: from c501552a ([24.5.121.123]) by ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com (Netscape Mail Server v2.02) with SMTP id AAA28591 for ; Thu, 6 May 1999 13:26:13 -0700 Message-ID: <000801be97fe$abb36260$7b790518@olmpi1.wa.home.com> From: "Richard E. Hoskins" To: References: <3731F281.3B1F505E@worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: BGC99 Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 13:26:06 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Bob: I have NO problem with a little promotion especially when a public health problem can be solved as a result of it. I agree with your points - and I have been trying for some time to get my agency to buy one of the lifestyle/demographic-type marketing databases. But there is no $. This stuff is not cheap. For example, we can't get a handle who is smoking and what the demographics of smokers are. These marketing dB's have that stuff - and much more, which directly relates to public health. Wouldn't it be great if we could target neighborhoods concerning smoking rather than using a blunderbuss approach and do it by county? Interventions could be developed which are culturally, age, sex, etc. appropriate. As far as health care and GIS, you are right, there has not been much. But public health and GIS as a commercial opportunity for vendors has been totally ignored and ... that is where the money is! There 3000+ counties, thousands of city health departments, 50 state health departments, I guess 75 schools of public health or similar, thousands upon thousands of health care practitioners that could benefit from epidemiological data available in geographic form, but so far not much response. As far as re-inventing the wheel goes, I submit that the notion of "catchment area" is not all worked out, but there is little doubt that the marketing folks are ahead of epidemiologists. Thanks for you input Dick Hoskins ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert B. Hoch To: Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 12:50 PM Subject: BGC99 > Dick, > > I've been reading the stream of notes that have appeared on the waphgis list > lately on the subject of catchment areas, and I can't help but suspect that > several are working very hard and diligently to reinvent a wheel. > > In case I haven't mentioned it before, I'm the program chairman for the Adams > Business Media's Business Geographics Conference, which will be held at > Chicago's Navy Pier October 4-6, 1999. You can find out more about the > conference itself at www.bgc99.com. If you have any questions after browsing > around there, I'll be glad to help where/when I can. > > The point(s) for now, though, are: > > a) Catchment areas are not a new concept. Marketing people, especially in the > retail trade industries, have been using them for some time under the guise > of what they call "trade area analysis" or "site selection." In fact, I have > a very good who used exactly these concepts to help a health care provider > decide where/how to select a site for a new hospital. So when you look at the > BGC agenda, these are two topics that I KNOW will benefit the list's readers > even though they're not appended with a "health care" flag. > > b) We're trying to include in the program a session or two specifically > oriented to heath care providers. It's too soon to say just how this might > shape up. For now, it's a twinkle in the eye. Frankly, I think GIS is just > making inroads in the health care industry and that there'll be pretty > intensive growth there in the next few years. > > c) If any list readers have projects they'd like to share, we're trying to > pull together a forum for doing just that. Instructions for filing abstracts > are at the same web site. Ignore all references to an April 15 deadline, but > folks should let me know directly if they choose to participate so I can > download their material. > > I hesitate to post all this directly to the list because some list moderators > object to promotional messages. In this case, though, I offer this info in a > spirit of providing information: promotional considerations aside, I get the > sense that several waphgis readers could benefit from topics to be discussed > in Chicago. Indeed, I think the sessions could accelerate a GIS learning > process that's long enough under normal circumstances, and that could be > shortened/alleviated by hearing how practitioners are using the technology in > a growing number of diverse business applications. > > Regards, > > Bob > > -- > Robert Hoch Consulting > 22614 Woodfield Road > Gaithersburg, MD 20882 > (301) 840-9320 FAX (301) 840-9413 > > .