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Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 36, Issue 1, January 2010, Pages 43-56
Robert McLemana, Sam Herolda, Zoran Reljica, Mike Sawadaa, and Daniel McKenney”
This article describes the development of a GIS-based model of historical drought and population change in western Canada, designed to support qualitative field research into drought adaptation and migration. The model combines digitized census data and recently available modeled historical climate data at a 10 km2 grid cell scale and can be used to generate maps of ‘hotspots’ where historical declines in rural populations may be associated with extended periods of heat and lack of precipitation. The results suggest a promising avenue for expanding and refining GIS-based modeling of historical human–climate interactions to support qualitative research and to potentially serve as a stepping stone toward forecasting future risk areas of drought-related migration in continental dryland areas.”
BMC Health Services Research, 2010, 10:64
Daniel F Lopez-Cevallos and Chunhuei Chi
“Background: There are few studies that have analyzed the context of health care utilization, particularly in Latin America. This study examines the context of utilization of health services in Ecuador; focusing on the relationship between provision of services and use of both preventive and curative services.
“Methods: This study is cross-sectional and analyzes data from the 2004 National Demographic and Maternal & Child Health dataset. Provider variables come from the Ecuadorian System of Social Indicators (SIISE). Global Moran’s I statistic is used to assess spatial autocorrelation of the provider variables. Multilevel modeling is used for the simultaneous analysis of provision of services at the province level with use of services at the individual level.
“Results: Spatial analysis indicates no significant differences in the density of health care providers among Ecuadorian provinces. After adjusting for various predisposing, enabling, need factors and interaction terms, density of public practice health personnel was positively associated with use of preventive care, particularly among rural households. On the other hand, density of private practice physicians was positively associated with use of curative care, particularly among urban households.
“Conclusions: There are significant public/private, urban/rural gaps in provision of services in Ecuador; which in turn affect people’s use of services. It is necessary to strengthen the public health care delivery system (which includes addressing distribution of health workers) and national health information systems. These efforts could improve access to health care, and inform the civil society and policymakers on the advances of health care reform.”
“Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.
“Natural Earth was built through a collaboration of many volunteers and is supported by NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society), and is free for use in any type of project.”
Pediatric Blood & Cancer, Volume 54 Issue 4, Pages 511 – 518, 2010
Raid Amin, PhD, Alexander Bohnert, Laurens Holmes, PhD, DrPH, Ayyappan Rajasekaran, PhD, and Chatchawin Assanasen, MD
“Background: Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related mortality for children. Whereas, improvement in care has dramatically increased survival, the risk factors remain to be fully understood. The increasing incidence of childhood cancer in Florida may be associated with possible cancer clusters. We aimed, in this study, to identify and confirm possible childhood cancer clusters and their subtypes in the state of Florida.
“Methods: We conducted purely spatial and space-time analyzes to assess any evidence of childhood malignancy clusters in the state of Florida using SaTScanTM. Data from the Florida Association of Pediatric Tumor Programs (FAPTP) for the period 2000-2007 were used in this analysis.
“Results: In the purely spatial analysis, the relative risks (RR) of overall childhood cancer persisted after controlling for confounding factors in south Florida (SF) (RR = 1.36, P = 0.001) and northeastern Florida (NEF) (RR = 1.30, P = 0.01). Likewise, in the space-time analysis, there was a statistically significant increase in cancer rates in SF (RR = 1.52, P = 0.001) between 2006 and 2007. The purely spatial analysis of the cancer subtypes indicated a statistically significant increase in the rate of leukemia and brain/CNS cancers in both SF and NEF, P < 0.05. The space-time analysis indicated a statistically significant sizable increase in brain/CNS tumors (RR = 2.25, P = 0.02) for 2006-2007.
“Conclusions: There is evidence of spatial and space-time childhood cancer clustering in SF and NEF. This evidence is suggestive of the presence of possible predisposing factors in these cluster regions. Therefore, further study is needed to investigate these potential risk factors.”
Health Affairs, 29, no. 3 (2010): 498-502
William M. Sage, Matthew Balthazar, Steven Kelder, Susan Millea, Stephen Pont, and Mohan Rao
“ Geographic information system (GIS) mapping can help communities visualize the health of their neighborhoods and identify opportunities for improvement. In Austin, Texas, Children’s Optimal Health, a nonprofit association, used GIS to map the prevalence of obesity among middle school children and to identify contributory factors. The maps indicated that obesity is a problem in all Austin middle schools. Two neighborhoods outside downtown Austin have particularly high concentrations of overweight and obese students. Maps also showed that the neighborhoods have different proportions of fast-food outlets, grocery stores selling fresh produce, green recreation space, and students failing cardiovascular testing. The mapping exercise spurred community groups to propose obesity interventions tailored to each neighborhood.”
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Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, Volume 3, Number 1 / March 2010
Gustavo Garcia Manzato and Antônio Nélson Rodrigues da Silva
“The objective of this exploratory study is to present a new method for monitoring the dynamic changes of functional urban regions (FURs) or metropolitan areas (MAs) boundaries throughout time. The suggested approach is based on two elements: the population density and an index of transportation infrastructure supply, which are analyzed in two ways. First, we carry out exploratory analyses of those variables separately. Next, the variables are combined using spatial analysis and spatial modeling techniques. A case study in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, shows that the proposed methodology can be particularly useful for urban and regional planning in developing countries, because it stresses the relationship between land-use and transportation supply. So, given the evidence that urban and regional development is strongly influenced by the level of transportation infrastructure supply, the approach can be further improved if considering other elements of transportation infrastructure, such as airports, railways, ports, as well as additional factors which may have effects on land use patterns such as distribution of services and jobs where data is available.”
New Book from ESRI Press Details Advances in Bathymetry
Ocean Globe from ESRI Press examines bathymetry from its early history through today’s use of geographic information systems (GIS) and other technologies to map the ocean floor. With contributions from oceanographers, explorers, and historians, this new book is a valuable resource for those interested in coastal management, seafloor mapping, and marine biology.
The anthology addresses how recent developments in bathymetry and seafloor mapping are applied to animal migrations, coral reef growth, tsunami forecasts, coastal ecosystems, aquatic farming, whale habitats, and more. In addition, the book includes a special appendix on the history of seafloor mapping—from early line-and-sinker methods to multibeam sounding.
“Our perception of the ocean floor has expanded through the use of GIS tools and geospatial applications,” writes Joe Breman, editor of the anthology. “The more we know about the underwater environment, so seldom visited by most people, the more our lives will benefit above ground.”
The book also explains how advances in technology and mapping in a server-based GIS environment enable the improved collaboration and sharing of methods and data. In her foreword, oceanographer Dawn J. Wright notes that Ocean Globe will help reveal the ocean depths within the new paradigm of server-based GIS, “where we not only show maps and visualizations, but more importantly the actual data and methods used to create those maps.”
Ocean Globe (ISBN: 9781589482197, 294 pages, $64.95) is available at online retailers worldwide, at www.esri.com/esripress, or by calling 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, visit www.esri.com/esripressorders for complete ordering options or contact your local ESRI distributor. For a current distributor list, visit www.esri.com/distributors. Interested retailers can contact ESRI Press book distributor Ingram Publisher Services.
Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, Volume 3, Number 1 / March 2010
Stefania Bertazzon, Scott Olson, and Merril Knudtson
“The association between cardiovascular disease and a pool of demographic and socioeconomic variables is analyzed, for a large Canadian city, by means of multivariate spatial regression analysis. The analysis suggests that the spatial dependence observed in the disease prevalence is driven by the spatial distribution of senior citizens. A spatially autoregressive specification on a pool of solely socio-economic variables produces a model whose main predictors are family status, income, and educational attainments. This model can provide an effective analytical tool to support policy decisions, because it identifies a set of socioeconomic, not simply demographic predictors of disease. These socio-economic variables can be targeted by social policies much more effectively than demographic variables. A further analytical step recombines the significant explanatory variables based on their spatial patterns. Thus the model is used to identify areas of social and economic concern, and to enable the initiation of specifically localized preventative health measures. Owing to its generality, the method can be applied to other conditions and to analyze multivariate relationships involving not only socioeconomic variables, but also environmental factors.”
The Annals of Regional Science, Volume 44, Number 2 / April, 2010
Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt and Wolfgang Maennig
“This paper develops a hedonic price model explaining standard land values in Berlin. The model assesses the impact of three multifunctional sports arenas situated in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg which were designed to improve the attractiveness of their formerly deprived neighbourhoods. Empirical results confirm expectations about the impact of various attributes on land values. Sports arenas have significant positive impacts within a radius of about 3,000 m. The patterns of impact vary, indicating that the effective impact depends on how planning authorities address potential countervailing negative externalities.”
