New Year Will Bring Updated Labs Including Lab Zero!

It has been 2 years since the Community Health Maps (CHM) lab exercises were first produced. Software changes quickly, and over the last two years the tools involved in the CHM workflow have undergone many changes. For example, this fall the pricing scheme for iForm changed. Though it is still a good product, this price increase puts it out of the category of low cost software. The companion site formhub.org no longer exists, making ODK Collect more difficult to work with. Fortunately Fulcrum is a fantastic alternative to those two data collection apps. QGIS has released 5 new versions and is now at version 2.18! CartoDb has been rebranded as Carto and has a new interface.

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The QGIS 2.18 Splash Banner

All these changes means it is time for all the lab exercises to be updated. Lab 1 will now be a single lab for both iOS and Android users with Fulcrum. Labs 2-5 will be updated to QGIS 2.18. Lab 6 will be updated to Carto’s new interface. The set of companion videos will also be redone and updated.

Many have worked through these labs and some provided feedback. This information is being used to improve the labs as they are updated. One new item will be Lab Zero. While the CHM workflow is intuitive, it has been suggested that more background information could be useful. Lab Zero will be a companion reference document to the CHM labs. It will contain: A) information on the background of the CHM project, B) software installation instructions , C) a glossary of terms, D) more thorough descriptions of some technical topics like coordinate reference systems, E) a description of how to interact with the QGIS community to get additional help, and F) a list of data resources. This work is in progress and will be ready this spring. Stay tuned!

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An image from the last task in Lab 4 showing the density of diabetics in Baltimore City along with dialysis clinics

 

CHM Has a Busy Fall with Workshops and Storms!

We had a busy fall giving three workshops in September and October. First Community Health Maps traveled to Spokane Washington to conduct a half day technical workshop at the National Tribal Forum for Excellence in Community Health Practice.

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This event was organized by the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We weren’t certain who or how many would attend, and I expect attendees weren’t entirely sure what Community Health Mapping was all about either. However, it turned out to be a very engaged group representing tribes from many regions of the country. Within a few hours everyone was able to:

  • Create a field data collection form in Fulcrum
  • Collect some data around the conference center on their smartphones/tablets
  • Make a map of their data in Carto
  • Learn how to bring the data into QGIS

This was a typical CHM workshop with most never having done any mapping work before. As such it was a very empowering experience for the participants to learn how to use this technology to map their community in just a few short hours.

From there we traveled to Honolulu, Hawai’i to give a workshop organized by Papa Ola Lokahi. There were two hurricanes (Lester and Madeline) heading towards the islands. Fortunately they both veered off and didn’t cause any damage or disruptions! The attendees came with a plethora of ideas on how mapping could fit into their work including:

A) tracking scholarship recipients of the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarships program,

B) supporting the Native Hawaiian Cancer Network,

C) mapping Dr. Ben Young’s research on historical tracking of Native Hawaiian Health professionals,

D) mapping Native Hawaiian Homelands to provide resource data to providers and community members, and

E) use the CHM “train the trainer” model to increase ongoing trainings for service providers including community health outreach workers and patient community navigators in Hawai’i.

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Papa Ola Lokahi staff learning  how to map their community with tablets and smartphones

After a brief break we headed to Seattle, Washington, again there were two separate storms including, the remnants of Typhoon Songda, bearing down on the region threatening to disrupt power and services! Again fortunately the storms didn’t make a direct hit on the area and the workshop proceeded on schedule.

We went to train students in the capstone course of the Community Oriented Public Health Practice Program at the University of Washington. This is our second year supporting this program. The first year was a huge success with two students attending the APTR Conference and presenting their work.

Like last year we had  a full house with students eager to learn about community mapping. Both first year and second year students were in attendance. Several second year students will submit proposals for consideration, to receive a stipend and support for using Community Health Maps in their capstone projects. Jamie Smeland is the first of the group to be awarded the stipend for her capstone project entitled, “Honoring the Collective Wisdom: Documenting a Cross-Racial and Intergenerational Movement to Shift Power to Youth and Parent Leaders to Improve Educational and Health Outcomes for Students of Color in South Seattle & South King County.” We look forward to working with these students in the coming months.

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UW Community Oriented Public Health Practice Program capstone students learning the Community Health Maps workflow

In the near future we will be offering an updated set of Community Health Mapping labs and a platform for CHM webinars. Stay tuned! In the meantime if you are interested in Community Health Maps and/or receiving CHM training contact John Scott (jcscott at cpsc.com) for more details.

GIS as an Educational Tool at MUSC

Submitted by Jennifer Rewolinski

Dr. Deborah Williamson is an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), Charleston. Dr. Williamson, Community Health Maps (CHM) and MUSC have partnered in providing training that integrates GIS and CHM tools for a high school Teen Health Leadership Program. Dr. Williamson has worked with both community members and students.

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Dr. Deborah Williamson (MUSC)

Dr. Williamson believes that, “GIS has the potential to substantially increase community engagement and is truly a concept of the neighborhood taking control of their data.” She notes that while researchers might study a community, that a community’s input is essential to understanding the cultural and environmental context surrounding health issues: “GIS mapping puts the community members on more of a level playing field with their research partners.” GIS can empower and educate community members to identify their key issues, to become a part of an analysis, and to provide solutions. When communities are given the opportunity to map their own health, discovery, and awareness, positive changes can result.  When a community feels it has more of a say through engagement with GIS, or communication with a map, intervention is more likely to be effective.

For the past three semesters, Dr. Williamson has used GIS in her own classroom as a capstone project for population health students.  They, “find it fun and can take it with them into other settings, it fits into the world of new technology, and it takes people to the next step of looking at health issues.” Mapping offers a different way to help students visualize Social Determinants of Health and to make the connection between what population health is, and the factors that promote or deter it.

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MUSC students presenting their capstone work at the APTR Conference in Albuquerque (April 2016)

Finally, Dr. Williamson sees GIS as bi-directional: it supports visualizing gaps and assets while also providing the ability to disseminate and build on information via intervention programs to improve health outcomes and strengthen communities. GIS is also broadly applicable to almost any discipline and easily used by those with little expertise. “Presenting raw data to a community or students doesn’t mean a lot,” Dr. Williamson comments, “but when that same data is aggregated visually it instantly communicates a message to any audience.” GIS is clearly suitable as an effective educational tool in the classroom and in communities.

CHM thanks Dr. Williamson for her continued collaboration and time spent advancing the CHM program through use of the CHM tools at MUSC. CHM values our partnership with MUSC and hope that the future is as mutually beneficial as the past few years.

Field data collection for the CHM workflow bridges the divide between learning in a classroom and experiencing conditions in a community. For the capstone project, students use CHM labs and parts of the CHM workflow, including phone data collection with iForm or Fulcrum, integration of the data into QGIS, and presenting the data with Carto or Google Maps. Dr. Williamson’s students often upload their data from iForm to Google Maps because of its familiarity and easy access.

One student project involved identifying migrant camps as a community in need, and assessing the community through surveys and key informant interviews.  When the data showed that migrant workers often lack knowledge of health information and access to healthcare services, students mapped locations of migrant camps near Charleston, SC in relation to urgent care facilities and shared the data with the migrant outreach workers from a local community health center. Later, an intervention was developed to provide hands on CPR and first aid instruction to 60 workers. This project displays successful application of CHM tools in an educational and community context resulting in an intervention that may offer real change.

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Map of MUSC Population Health student’s capstone project showing the locations of migrant camps and urgent care facilities in Charleston, SC.

Visualizing an Intervention for Tobacco Control

Submitted by Jennifer Rewolinski

Dr. Heckman, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, used Community Health Maps (CHM) tools in his research on tobacco control. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and costs the US $130 billion in direct medical costs annually. Smoking is still a major public health issue that influences mortality, morbidity, healthcare costs, the environment, and quality of life.

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Dr. Bryan Heckman

The outcome of Dr. Heckman’s precision medicine project will be a mobile app that aids smokers who recently quit by alerting them of proximity to stores which sell cigarettes or alternative nicotine products. Studies show that greater tobacco retailer density is associated with greater incidence of relapse; Dr. Heckman believes that mapping provides a new approach to visualizing environmental factors. A CHM training event at MUSC spurred his decision to integrate mapping into his own work using the CHM labs as a guide. These labs provide step-by-step instructions for implementing the CHM workflow. He used the data collection app Fulcrum on an iPhone to collect information on retailers: GPS coordinates, type, type of tobacco products sold, e-cigarette advertising, and photos. His team also used a high-powered Trimble GPS device to test accuracy of phone GPS, and the accuracy of phone GPS was adequate and more cost effective than more expensive GPS devices.

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Figure 1. Dr. Heckman’s in progress map shows higher numbers of tobacco retailers are associated with  Census Tracts that have both higher poverty and a higher percentage of minority populations.

Dr. Heckman integrated his Fulcrum data into QGIS software. He added national datasets from the American Community Survey and Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System for Census tract data, and Synar for retailer data to check the validity of the Fulcrum data; field data collection with Fulcrum revealed a more accurate list of current retailers than the national secondary datasets provided. Dr. Heckman believes QGIS is a powerful tool with many features; he was not only able to use QGIS to monitor and visualize his research questions but also to guide his project decisions and hypotheses. His results will guide policy recommendations, improve access to care, and deliver novel interventions.

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Figure 2. Dr. Heckman’s in progress map shows higher numbers of tobacco retailers are associated with Census Tracts with higher percentages of minority populations.

For those attempting to undertake a health GIS project on their own, Dr. Heckman emphasized that all the tools needed are provided on the CHM blog; only time and patience are required. He also recommends asking for help and reaching out to other CHM users who have experience. Dr. Heckman’s project has the potential to affect behavior change and reduce health disparities via a mobile intervention app which identifies nearby tobacco retailers and prompts and provides an intervention and awareness of a health issue. Dr. Heckman’s experience is an example of how the CHM blog and tools might be used.

Dr. Heckman would like to thank Kurt Menke and the CHM team, Dr. Williamson from MUSC, and his mentors for inspiration and growth. He would also like to acknowledge the Hollings Cancer Center and American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant that helps support his work, and Alex Hirsch for his help coordinating the project.

The CHM team would like to extend their own gratitude to Dr. Heckman as they sincerely appreciate his time and his support of the CHM blog.

CHM Workshop at the National Tribal Forum in Spokane, WA

This week the Community Health Maps team is heading to Spokane, Washington to teach a workshop at the National Tribal Forum for Excellence in Community Health Practice! We are honored to participate and engage a new community of mappers.2016-08-29_161231

It is a four hour workshop and by the end attendees will have:

  • Built their own data collection form in Fulcrum
  • Gone outside and collected some points
  • Made an online map of what they collected in Carto
  • Learned how to work with QGIS!

We’ll report back on how it goes when we return. Stay tuned!

CartoDB Rebranded as Carto

Community Health Maps has long recommended the use of CartoDB for those interested in low cost online mapping and data visualization. In fact, CHM caught the beginning of this wave because CartoDB wasn’t even launched until 2012!

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Original CartoDB logo

Early last month (July 2016) CartoDB was rebranded as Carto, which includes a new logo. However, once you get beyond the new logo your current account page including your data and maps remains unchanged.  You can still build maps the way you always have in what is now known as Carto Editor.

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New Carto logo

The main difference is that Carto now offers up a new interface named Carto Builder. The good news for Community Health Mappers is that their goal with Carto Builder is to introduce an updated interface. One that still does not require complex geospatial skills and programming. With Carto Builder they aim to make Location Intelligence (LI) more accessible to more people.  This means it will give you point and click access to deeper analysis of your data. Builder will have all the functionality currently found in Editor along with the new tools.

Eventually Carto Editor will be phased out and Carto Builder will be the interface everyone uses. You can request early access to Carto Builder here: http://go.carto.com/request-beta-access. New users of Carto will be given access the the Carto Builder in phases, over the next several months. All existing maps and data will be seamlessly migrated to the new interface. The following page answers Frequently Asked Questions about the migration from Editor to Builder: https://carto.com/docs/carto-builder/faqs/

Once the migration is complete I will post about the new functionality. Stay tuned!

 

So What is Open Source Exactly?

This term ‘Open Source’ pops up in discussions about Community Health Maps and the blog and I realize many may not really know what it means. That’s OK, I’m going to explain it here. From both licensing and software development perspectives, there are two broad categories of computer software: proprietary and open source. The figure below shows some examples of both types.

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Examples of Open Source & Proprietary Software

Proprietary Software 

Proprietary software is created and sold by a corporation. They create software and sell it to make a profit. When purchasing it you may also be paying for the privilege to get help and support using the software. Or you may have to pay extra for that privilege. Two examples of proprietary software are Microsoft Office and Esri’s ArcGIS. There is also a license that accompanies a proprietary software package. When you purchase software, you are actually just buying a license that gives you the rights to operate the software. You never actually own the software itself. That software license will restrict use in some way:

  1. the number of computers you are allowed to install the software onto,
  2. the time period that the software will operate, and
  3. the number of features you are licensed to use.

Open Source Software

Open source software (OSS), on the other hand, is created by a community of software developers (programmers). It is created to solve a common problem and is made available freely for everyone’s use. Open Office, Android and QGIS are examples. Open source software also comes with a license. That license tends to grant rights to users. For example:

  1. The freedom to run the software for any purpose.
  2. The freedom to study how the software works.
  3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
  4. The freedom to improve the program.

Access to the source code may not be important to most, but the freedom to use the software as you see fit very well may be.

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Why Give it Away for Free?

To many it is counter-intuitive for something of value to be given away for free.  However, open source software development isn’t entirely altruistic. Most of these programmers work for companies providing services with the software. Those involved in an open source project simply feel that this is a better way to create software. There are several reasons for this:

  1. there are a lot of “eyes” on the code and bugs can be spotted and fixed quickly,
  2. having access to the source code let’s you understand how the software is working, it’s not a ‘black box,’
  3. you are not locked into a particular vendors system, licensing scheme or software release schedule,
  4. you have the freedom to create any missing functionality that you need
  5. you benefit from the contributions of others and vice versa.

Making Money with OSS

Obviously you can provide services using OSS. However, there are other ways to make money with open source. Companies like Facebook, IBM, Sun, and Google are all heavily involved in open source. Let’s take the example of Google. They may be the world’s largest open source company. One of the keys to their business are vast server farms, which include several million servers. Google never would have been able to get their company off the ground if it weren’t for the Linux operating system. The cost of putting a proprietary operating system like Windows on all those servers would have been prohibitive. Now their open source Android operating system is the most popular on the market with a 66.5% market share. In another example, even Esri’s ArcGIS includes some open source software components ‘under the hood.’ This is because some open source software licenses allow that software to be bundled with proprietary software and sold for profit.

Any given open source software is considered a ‘project’ and they aren’t all user friendly and useful. You still have to determine if the software will meet your needs. An important aspect is getting help and support. Things to look for include a good online manual, ‘how-to’ books, and an active listserv.

QGIS

Let’s take QGIS as an example. It has fantastic support. It has a great online manual, training material, case studies, sample maps, commercial support, email listservs, plus a number of ‘how-to’ books written by people who use QGIS. The QGIS project does not have a corporation behind it. It has about 30 independent but dedicated core developers. They work in a democratic fashion, voting on new features to be implemented. As an end user you can provide input with feature requests! With QGIS, if there is a feature you need that doesn’t exist, you can hire (sponsor) a programmer to create it. It then may become part of the core program or it may be written as a standalone plugin. That feature then becomes part of the software and everyone benefits. As a user of the software, you can easily contact someone involved in developing the software and ask questions and request features. With proprietary software you never have such direct access to the development team. You can also donate to the QGIS project. Your donation will pay for developers to fix bugs and implement new features. Beyond programming there are many ways people can contribute to a project like QGIS. You can report bugs when you encounter them, write and translate documentation, contribute a case study, and write books.

Summary

Open source is both a development methodology and a software license. In the end it is really impossible to say that a proprietary software like ArcGIS is better than the open source equivalent like QGIS or vice versa. You must decide if either works for you, and freedom and monetary cost may be part of that decision.

End Note:

There are a lot of acronyms in GIS and specifically open source GIS. Here are some you may encounter:

FOSS = Free and Open Source. Historically there were two similar software movements, Free Software and Open Source software. They are so similar that they now are lumped together, and people simply use this acronym when talking about them.

FOSS4G – Free and Open Source for Geospatial. This is free and open source software specifically for mapping. OsGeo (below) holds annual open source GIS conferences called FOSS4G. The next is coming up later this month in Bonn, Germany.

OsGeoOpen Source Geospatial Foundation – this is a non-profit organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development. To be considered an OsGeo project a software must meet certain requirements. QGIS is a project under the OsGeo umbrella.