geographic visualization to support epidemiology in bulgaria anthony c. robinson geovista center...
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Geographic Visualization to Support Epidemiology in Bulgaria
Anthony C. Robinson
GeoVISTA CenterDepartment of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
Outline
• Motivation
• Introduction to Geographic Visualization
• The ESTAT Toolkit
• Using ESTAT to explore health in Bulgaria
• Future Directions
Motivation
• Health outcomes are closely tied to place and time
• Epidemiology requires tools to help explore massive digital databases
• Geographic Visualization is a new way to deal with these constraints
• Geo-Visualization can help with analysis of health issues in Bulgaria
Geographic Visualization
Common GIS– Static maps and graphics– Designed for prescribed
analysis– Provides a single view
Geo-Visualization– Interactive maps and
graphics– Designed for data
exploration– Multiple, coordinated views
Geo-Visualization at Penn State
• GeoVISTA – Geographic Visualization Science, Technology and Applications Center
• GeoVISTA Center creates new Geo-Viz tools for a wide range of application contexts:
– Spatial Epidemiology– Emergency Management– Intelligence Analysis– Climate Change
ESTAT• The Exploratory Spatio-Temporal Analysis Toolkit
Scatterplot
Parallel Coordinate PlotChoropleth Map
Time Series Graph
ESTAT• Designed with support from the USA National
Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Developed by software engineers at GeoVISTA
• I worked with Epidemiologists at NCI from 2003-05 to design and evaluate ESTAT
• Focused on visualizing cancer incidence, mortality, and socio-economic indicators
Application of ESTAT in USA
• We have worked closely with health analysts to explore spatial patterns
• ESTAT is intended to help users create new hypotheses or modify those that already exist
• One particularly odd pattern has emerged:
– Lung Cancer Mortality & Annual Precipitation
Exploring Health in Bulgaria
• Data from BG National Center for Health Informatics, Data Presentation System
• Data from BG National Statistical Institute 2001
Census results
• 472 variables for 28 Oblasts
– Incidence/Mortality time series (1996 – 2004)– Health care indicators– Population and social covariates
Exploring Health in Bulgaria
ESTAT Demonstration
ESTAT Technical Details
• Data requirements: ESRI Shapefile with corresponding databases (in .dbf or .csv formats)
• Computer requirements: 512 m. of RAM, installation of the Java environment
• Most computers built within the past 5 years will run ESTAT with little trouble
Open-Source Tools
• ESTAT and all of the tools we build at GeoVISTA are Open Source
• This means that the programs are open to all uses and that the source code is free to anyone who wishes to extend it
• In short – ESTAT is free for you to use and modify as you wish!
Future Development
• We are currently working to implement spatial statistic methods into ESTAT
• ESTAT will be extended with a tool designed to detect clusters among variables
• Soon you will be able to save and share your exploration with others
What We Can Do
• Collaborate to explore and analyze relevant health issues in Bulgaria
• Let us put your data into ESTAT!
• We can also work together to design a custom version of ESTAT for Bulgaria
Мерси!
This presentation and ESTAT with Bulgaria Data:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/acr181/bulgaria.html
For more about the GeoVISTA Center:
http://www.geovista.psu.edu/
For academic papers see:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/acr181/portfolio.html