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Health GIS Applications &Its Future Trends in Turkey

H. Ebru COLAKTahsin YOMRALIOGLU, Halil SOGUT

Karadeniz Technical University,

GISLab, Trabzon, TURKEY

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2008 ESRI Health GIS Conference,

Washington DC, USA.

Introduction

• The environment affects people’s health and well-being.

• Many public health problems have a geographic component.

• GIS is used increasingly in public health research.

• Many epidemiologists, public health professionals and GIS experts have used disease maps when analyzing relationship between location, environment, and disease.

• Health GIS applications and its future trends in Turkey is thesubject of our research.

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GIS in Health…

• can be used to map and analyze the geographical distributions of populations at risk, health outcomes, and risk factors.

• is enabled to be research logical spatial variation for disease risk.

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• allows policy makers to easily visualize problems in relation to existing health and social services.

• can play an important role in the detection, management and response to health problems.

REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

� The population of Turkey

� is 70 million people

� density is 92 person

/square km

� growth rate is 1.04%

� 50% of is female

(Census 2007)

� Turkey is a democratic, secular and constitutional republic.

The land area is 774.815 km2

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Health System in Turkey

• The Turkish health care system is a highly complex structure, centralized and fragmented at the same time.

• The health care service is provided by public, social security, university, private and philanthropic organizations….

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• In Turkey (2003) there was one doctor for every 700 people and one nurse for every 590 people, and one hospital bed for every 400 people….

In the recent years, there were many research has been carried out in Turkey.

For example:

�The Ministry of Health has developed the Health Transition Project (2003).

The project aims were;

▫ to achieve more efficient and effective health services in Turkey.

▫ health data are organized digitally the national and international health data standards.

▫ health services are integrated GIS in order to ensure knowledge to decision makers. (Turkısh Mınıstry of Health Report)

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Turkish Health Transition Project

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Health GIS in Turkey

• In Turkey, Health GIS concept is a new approach which is realized over the past 5 years.

• The spatial epidemiology applications using GIS are carried out by different academicians such as GIS expert, geographer, or surveying engineering rather than epidemiologist.

• Thematic maps are basically created via GIS concern about managing and planning of health services, managing of services of emergency aid, the investigation of spatial variation in disease risk and disease maps.

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• There are only a few Health GIS applications which are worked together epidemiologists and GIS experts.

• But, the use of GIS in health applications are increasing.

• In comparison to epidemiologists, surveying engineers and geographers increasingly are interested in academic researches on Health GIS in Turkey.

• There are limited numbers of scientific researches include spatially and statistically analysis.

• Disease mapping at the small-area scale or province-based are being carried out in Turkey.

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Health GIS in Turkey…

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Example Case Studies

▫ cancer maps are being used to investigate between different cancer cases and environmental risk factors in the province of Trabzon.

▫ monitoring of fenilketonuri illness,

▫ tracking hereditary blood disease for Konya province,

▫ mapping the distribution of dialysis patient and obesity for the Konya province,

▫ the epidemic distribution of measles for a district of Istanbul province,

▫ planning of emergency services,

▫ air pollution mapping and its influence for human health,

▫ water pollution assessment.

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Cancer Density Map of Trabzon Province (2005)

• cancerincidence mapof Trabzon province

• cancer cases and environmental risk factors in the province of Trabzon.

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Geographical distribution of cancer cases in Trabzon city

centre (2005)

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Clustering cancer cases for Trabzon province (2007)

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Map of Fenilketonüri illness in Konya (2004)

Province-based monitoring of fenilketonuri illness

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Mapping of hereditary blood disease using GIS, Konya province(2004)

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Emergency service map for Trabzon province (2006)

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Air quality research using GIS in Istanbul city (2003)

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In this study, the

relationships

between SO2

concentrations

with land uses

and population

has been

investigated

using GIS.

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World Health Organisation (WHO) produces country-wide

thematic disease maps for Turkey which health data are given by the Ministry of Health of Turkey.

• WHO - Global Health Atlas, 2008 produce atlases such as;

▫ non-communicable and communicable disease maps

▫ the geographic, age and gender distribution of health-workface maps,

▫ health status indicators maps

▫ maps of behavioral and risk factor indicators

▫ maps of basic demographic and socio-economic indicators.

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WHO - Global Health Atlas

Map of Tuberculosis cases (per 100 000 population), By Country, 2006

(WHO-Global Health Atlas, 2008).

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CONCLUSION

• GIS enabled the research on logical spatial variation of disease risk.

• Disease mapping has made contributions to public health and epidemiology.

• In Turkey, many Health GIS applications have been produced such as temporal and spatial patterns of hazards for environmental health problems and infectious disease maps.

• Finally, cancer density maps, heart disease maps, hereditary blood disease maps and air pollution mapping are alsoproduced much more easier with GIS.

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Thanks for listening…

Ress. Ass. H.Ebru COLAK-----------------------------------------

Karadeniz Technical UniversityDept. of Surveying Engineering

GISLab - 61080 Trabzon / Turkeyecolak@ktu.edu.tr

www.jeodezi.ktu.edu.tr/ecolak-------------------------------------

www.gislab.ktu.edu.tr

Any questions ?

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