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Chapter 1

Introducing GIS and health applications

Objectives

• Define GIS

• Define spatial data for graphic and image map layers

• Review the national infrastructure for spatial data

• Review the unique capabilities of GIS

• Demonstrate how GIS can be used for health applications

• Introduce ArcGIS and its user interface

• Introduce online GIS tools

Geographic information systems (GIS) is a technology that has unique and valuable applications for policy makers, planners, and managers in many fields, including public health and health care. GIS health applications include an academic organization’s use of GIS for medical research, a hospital or managed-care organization’s improved delivery of health-care services, and a public health department’s use of mapping and spatial statistics for disease surveillance and analysis. GIS software and applications allow visualization and processing of data in ways that were not possible in the past. The purpose of this book is to provide hands-on experience with the use of ArcGIS for Desktop software in the context of health applications. You need no previous experience using GIS.

This chapter describes GIS and its inputs and special capabilities and follows with a discussion of health issues and GIS applications. We also preview the upcoming tutorials in this book, and then use short tutorials in this chapter to introduce you to the use of ArcGIS software.

What is GIS?

GIS is computer technology that engages geographers, computer scientists, social scientists, planners, engineers, and others in spatially analyzing issues. Consequently, it has been defined from several different perspectives (see Clarke 2003). We prefer a definition that emphasizes GIS as an information system: GIS is a system for input, storage, processing, and retrieval of spatial data. Except for the additional word “spatial,” this is a standard definition of an information system. Spatial components include a digital map infrastructure, GIS software with unique functionality that focuses on location, and new mapping applications for organizations of all kinds. Definitions of these distinctive aspects of GIS follow.

Spatial data

Spatial data includes the locations and shapes of geographic features, in the form of either vector or raster data. Vector maps have features drawn using points, lines, and polygons to represent discrete geographic objects such as automobile accident locations, streets, and counties. (A polygon is a closed area that has a boundary consisting of connected straight lines.) Raster maps are generally aerial photographs, satellite images, or representations of surfaces such as elevation, which are used to represent continuous geographies.

For example, figure 1.1 is a vector map that has three polygon map layers (state and county boundaries and lakes), a line layer of rivers, and a point layer of cities that have populations of 250,000 or more. The state and county boundaries are coterminous — that is, they share boundaries and do not overlap each other. Color fill is used within the county polygons to show the mortality of lung cancer for white males. This map has some striking geographic patterns that are discussed later in this chapter.

Associated with individual point, line, or polygon features are data records that provide identifying and descriptive data attributes. For example, in figure 1.1, the labels for the names of states and cities come from tables of attribute records associated with each map layer. You will revisit this map in tutorials 1-3 and 1-4 in this chapter where you will use ArcGIS to explore map layers and spatial patterns of cancer mortality.

Figure 1.1 Lung cancer mortality per 100,000 white males, 2000 – 2004.

Sources: (a) Esri Data & Maps; (b) Cancer Mortality Maps website, National Cancer Institute.

Raster maps are stored in standard digital image formats, such as tagged image file format (TIFF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) files. An image file is a rectangular array, or raster, of very small, square pixels. Each pixel, or cell, has a single value and solid color and corresponds to a small, square area on the ground, from 6 in. to 3 ft on a side for high-resolution images. Accompanying the image files are world files that provide georeferencing data, including the upper-left pixel’s location coordinates and the width of each pixel in ground units. Using world file information, GIS software can assemble individual raster datasets into larger areas and overlay them with aligned vector datasets.

Viewed on a computer screen or on a paper map, a raster map can provide a detailed backdrop of physical features. In figure 1.2, an aerial photograph overlaid with vector map layers shows locations where serious injuries of child pedestrians occurred in relation to public parks that have playgrounds. The two boundaries surrounding the parks are 600 ft and 1,200 ft buffers used to study injury rates near parks. You will explore the GIS data behind this map in depth in chapters 4 and 7, where you will download similar orthoimagery and create and use buffers similar to those in figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Locations of serious injuries to child pedestrians in eastern Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sources: (a) Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; (b) US Geological Survey; (c) City of Pittsburgh, Department of City Planning.

Map layers have geographic coordinates, projections, and scale. Geographic coordinates for the nearly spherical world are measured in polar coordinates, and the angles of rotation are measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds, or decimal degrees. The (0,0) origin of the coordinate system is generally taken as the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian (great circle), which passes through the poles and an observatory in Greenwich, England. Latitude is measured north and south for up to 90 degrees in each direction. Longitude is measured to the east and west of the origin for up to 180 degrees in each direction.

The world is not quite a sphere because the poles are slightly flattened and the equator is slightly bulged out. The world’s surface is better modeled by a spheroid, which has elliptical cross sections and two radii, instead of the one radius of a sphere. The mathematical representation of the world as a spheroid is called a datum; for example, a datum commonly used for North America is North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 1983). If you use the same projection but two different datums for your maps, each corresponding map will have small but noticeable differences in location.

A point, line, or polygon feature on the surface of the world is on a three-dimensional spheroid, whereas features on a paper map or computer screen are on a flat surface. The mathematical transformation of a world feature into a flat map is called a projection. There are many projections, some of which you will use in chapter 4. Each projection has its own rectangular coordinate system and a (0,0) origin conveniently located so that coordinates are positive and have distance units, usually in feet or meters.

All projections necessarily cause distortion of direction, shape, area, or length in some combination. So-called conformal projections preserve shape at the expense of distorting area. Some examples are the Mercator cylindrical and Lambert conic projections. Equal-area projections are the opposite of conformal projections: They preserve area while distorting shape. An example is the Albers equal-area projection (Clarke 2003, 42 – 44).

Map scale is often stated as a unitless, representative fraction; for example, 1:24,000 is a map scale where 1 in. on the map represents 24,000 in. on the ground, and any distance units can be substituted for inches. Small-scale maps have a vantage point far above the earth and large-scale maps are zoomed in on relatively small areas. Distortions are considerable for small-scale maps but negligible for large-scale maps relative to policy, planning, and research applications.

GIS maps are composites of overlying map layers. For large-scale maps such as figure 1.2, the bottom layer can be a raster map that has one or more vector layers on top, placed in order so that smaller or more important features are on top and not covered up by larger contextual features. Small-scale maps, such as figure 1.1, often consist solely of vector-map layers. Each vector layer consists of a homogeneous type of feature — points, lines, or polygons.

Digital map infrastructure

GIS is perhaps the only information technology that requires a major digital infrastructure. The map layers of the infrastructure are referred to as basemaps — namely, a collection of standards, codes, and data designed, built, and maintained by government. Vendors provide valuable enhancements to the digital map infrastructure, but for the most part, it is a public good financed by tax dollars. Without this infrastructure, GIS would not be a viable technology.

The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), developed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC at http://www.fgdc.gov), incorporates policies, standards, and procedures that allow organizations to produce and share geographic data. The Geospatial One-Stop website (http://geo.data.gov/geoportal), which is part of the NSDI, provides access to spatial data. Websites change often. The websites noted in this book could be named differently or redirected to different sites, but the information will still be available if you search for it. GIS provides a way to use this wealth of publicly available data in your own studies.

Perhaps the most useful spatial data for health applications comes from the US Census Bureau in the form of TIGER/Line maps. These maps are available by state and county for many classes of layers. These classes, and examples of each, include the following:

• Political: states, counties, county subdivisions (towns and cities), and voting districts

• Statistical: census tracts, block groups, and blocks

• Administrative: ZIP Codes and school districts

• Physical: highways, streets, rivers, streams, lakes, and railroads

You can download TIGER/Line map layers in GIS-ready formats at no cost from the US Census Bureau website (http://www.census.gov). Steps for doing so are included in chapter 5.

Census data that corresponds to TIGER/Line maps of statistical boundaries is tabulated by census-area codes and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) codes (http://www.census.gov/georeference/ansi.html). ANSI codes are “a standardized set of numeric or alphabetic codes issued by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to ensure uniform identification of geographic entities through all federal government agencies,” according to the ANSI website. Data from the decennial census is available at no cost from the Census Bureau. Steps for downloading census data and preparing it for GIS use with TIGER/Line maps are included in chapter 5.

The US Geological Survey (http://www.usgs.gov/aboutusgs/) is the “nation’s largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency … [and it] collects, monitors, analyzes, and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems,” according to the USGS website. Among its products that are useful for health applications are national map orthoimagery aerial photographs (such as the one used in figure 1.2). Full national coverage of the most recent national map orthoimagery is available from USGS via The National Map at http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/. Steps for downloading USGS maps are included in chapter 4.

Local governments provide many of the large-scale map layers in the United States, and most features in this data are smaller than a city block. This data includes deeded land parcels and corresponding real property data files on land parcels, structures, owners, building roof footprints, and pavement digitized from aerial photographs. You can often obtain such map layers and data for nominal prices from local governments. Some local health departments provide limited health data.

Unique capabilities of GIS

Maps were historically made for reference purposes. Street maps, atlases, and USGS topographic maps are all reference maps. It wasn’t until the advent of GIS, however, that analytic mapping became widely possible. For analytic mapping, an analyst collects and compiles related map layers, builds a database, and then uses GIS functionality to provide information for understanding or solving a problem. Before GIS, analytic mapping was limited to organizations such as city planning departments. Analysts did not have digital map layers, so they made hard-copy drawings on acetate sheets that could be overlaid and switched in and out to show before-and-after maps for a new facility such as a baseball stadium or a hospital. Using GIS, however, anyone can easily add, subtract, turn on and off, and modify map layers in an analytic map composition. This capacity has led to a revolution in geography and an entirely new tool for organizations of all kinds.

As figures 1.1 and 1.2 show, maps use symbols, which are defined in map legends. Graphical elements of symbols include fill color, pattern, and boundaries for polygons; width, color, and type (solid, dashed, curved) for lines; and shape, color, and outline for points. A GIS analyst does not individually apply symbols to features, but applies and renders a layer at a time based on attribute values associated with geographic features.

For example, given a code attribute for schools that has the values “public,” “private,” and “parochial,” a GIS analyst can choose a green, circular, 10-point marker for public schools; a blue, square, 8-point marker for private schools; and an orange, triangular, 8-point marker for parochial schools. These three steps render all schools in a map layer by the desired point markers.

Similarly, we created the color-shaded county map layer in figure 1.1 based on an attribute that provides the lung cancer mortality rate of white males by county. A map that uses fill color in polygons for coding is called a choropleth map. In this case, it shows an equal-interval numeric scale, rendered using a gray monochromatic color scale. The darker the shade of gray, the higher the interval of the numeric scale. By making selections and setting parameters, the GIS analyst accomplishes all this coding and rendering using a simple graphic user interface (GUI).

Most organizations generate or collect data that includes street addresses, ZIP Codes, or other georeferences. GIS is able to spatially enable this data — that is, add geographic coordinates or make data records joinable to boundary maps. Geocoding, also known as address matching, uses street addresses as input and assigns point coordinates to address records on or adjacent to street centerlines, such as in the TIGER/Line street maps. Geocoding uses a sophisticated program that has built-in intelligence — similar to that of a postal delivery person delivering your mail — that can interpret misspellings, variations in abbreviations, and rearrangement of certain address components.

Policy, planning, and research activities often require data aggregated over space and time, rather than individual points. For example, in a study of demand patterns for locating a satellite medical clinic, it may be desirable to aggregate patient residence data to counts per census tract or ZIP Code boundaries for a recent year. GIS has the unique capacity to determine the areas in which points lie, using a spatial join or overlay function that allows the analyst to count points or summarize their attributes by area, using sums or averages.

This leads to the last GIS capability to be described in this section, proximity analysis. As an example, we conducted a study to determine whether the decline in the use of senior centers was affected by the distance from the seniors’ residences (Johnson et al. 2005). We geocoded the senior centers that provided human services and where the senior citizens lived, placing them as points on a map, and included the total target population using census data by city block. Then we used ArcGIS to create buffers around the facilities using a radius of 0.5 mi, 1 mi, 1.5 mi, 2 mi, and so on. We used spatial joins to assign buffer identifiers to residence points and blocks, count clients by buffer area, and sum up the population by block group.

Next, through careful subtraction of counts and sums, we were able to get the total number of clients and the target population in each ring around facilities (such as 0.5 mi, 1 mi, 1.5 mi), calculate use rates for each ring by dividing the count of clients by the sum of the target population, and plot the relationship of use rate versus mean distance of each ring from facilities. We found that the use rate by clients, who were elderly users of the senior center facilities in our county, declined rapidly with distance, presumably because of the seniors’ mobility limitations. The policy implication is that senior centers need to be located in areas that have high densities of elderly populations so that more of the elderly will be able to use them. You will conduct similar buffer analyses in chapters 7, 9, and 10 in a variety of health contexts.

Summary of chapters

Following is a brief summary of chapters. Chapters 1 – 9 include tutorials for learning GIS and chapters 10 and 11 are optional case studies that reinforce the skills learned in the previous chapters.

Chapter 1: Introducing GIS and health applications

Health care is a large, growing, and complex sector of economies around the world. The United States, like other countries, faces many challenges in providing the best health care for its citizens and at the lowest possible cost. Currently, many health informatics systems are manual and/or nonintegrated (The Economist 2005) in that interacting organizations have in-house information systems that are not connected to each other in ways that would allow beneficial sharing of data. This has led to top-heavy administrations, high costs of transactions (Hagland 2004), medical errors, and duplication of efforts, such as unnecessary medical tests (Protti 2005). Additional health policy issues can arise from too much emphasis on the treatment of sickness and not enough on the prevention of illness (Kennedy 2004), enormous numbers of uninsured persons, the overuse of emergency rooms, nursing shortages, and the lack of preparedness for bioterrorism (Featherly 2004).

One clear trend in health policy, research, planning, and management is the increasingly important role of health informatics. More systems will become automated and integrated, at a large cost but with even larger benefits. What does this mean for GIS applications? One consequence is that there will be even more data available for possible input to GIS — additional data on patients, facilities, programs, and events that include disease incidence, medical diagnostics, and treatments. Much of the additional data will have street addresses, ZIP Codes, or other location elements that will make it applicable to GIS processing.

In addition to ArcGIS for Desktop, there are online and mobile applications that allow you to view, download, and share basemaps. ArcGIS.com map viewer is a free web application that allows sharing and searching of geographic information, as well as content published by Esri, ArcGIS users, and other authoritative data providers. ArcGIS.com map viewer allows users to create and join groups and to control access to items shared publicly or within groups. For those wanting to explore using GIS on mobile devices, ArcGIS for iOS is a free application that runs on an iOS device such as iPad or iPhone. You can download this free application to your iOS device to view web maps created in ArcGIS Online and perform simple GIS functions such as measuring distances and areas.

In this chapter, you begin to explore the online sites by creating layer packages in ArcMap, one of the primary components of ArcGIS for Desktop, to upload to ArcGIS.com as well as explore health content already available on this website.

The book overall contains a sampling of health GIS applications that cut a wide path across the landscape we have just described.

Chapter 2: Visualizing health data

Chapter 2 uses a simple public health application for visualizing breast cancer mortality rates at the state and county levels across the United States. In the tutorials, you work with breast cancer data. While valuable for providing a snapshot of cancer mortality, the primary purpose of the application is to get you comfortable with map navigation in ArcGIS. ArcGIS provides many ways to change scales and views of a map in search of information, as well as ways to work with the data records behind the map features. You will get experience with some of them in this chapter.

Chapter 3: Designing maps for a health study

In chapter 3, you learn about uninsured populations in a state and their health-care financial needs. In the tutorials, you analyze where to locate programs that provide health-related financial support for uninsured populations in Texas counties. You use an advanced map with a bivariate analysis to contrast the magnitude of uninsured populations with measures of poverty by county.

GIS can provide many kinds of outputs. In this chapter, you build stand-alone map layouts that contain components such as multiple map frames, legends, and scale bars for use in presentations and reports.

Chapter 4: Projecting, downloading, and using spatial data

What are the most appropriate ways to map disease incidence (numbers of cases) versus prevalence (numbers of cases per population of 10,000)? In the first health application in chapter 4, you visualize a communicable disease — HIV infection and AIDS. You build two kinds of map layers to encode data: one for disease incidence based on polygon centroids (points) using size-graduated point markers and the other for disease prevalence represented by the fill color for polygons.

A second application teaches you how to download international HIV/AIDS data from a website for a selected country.

A third application uses local data to pursue the problem of child obesity. Your objective in these tutorials is to identify green spaces in the vicinity of schools that could possibly be used in physical education programs. You will also learn how to download aerial images from USGS.

GIS issues pursued in these applications involve downloading and importing spatial data into ArcGIS and projecting map layers based on the application and geographic scale at hand.

Chapter 5: Downloading and preparing spatial and tabular data

Where are the concentrations of a city’s older houses that are likely to have lead-based paint? Do children who have elevated levels of lead in their blood live in those areas? The purpose of the study in chapter 5 is to identify clusters of children who have elevated blood lead levels for the targeting of lead-screening programs. You work with elevated blood lead level samples that have been aggregated to census tracts and census tract data on housing built before 1970, when lead-based paints were still used.

In chapter 5, you download and prepare US Census data. You must clean up the data by renaming variables and deleting rows that do not conform to data table formats and by modifying census tract identifiers in the table so that they match comparable identifiers in the census tract map layer. Then you join them to a downloaded census tract boundary map. Ultimately, you will produce a very nice bivariate map using choropleth and dot-density displays. In that map, you will place randomly located points within polygons in proportion to an attribute of interest. The tutorials in chapter 5 seek additional explanation of observed clusters by using additional census variables to spatially explore a public health problem.

Chapter 6: Geocoding tabular data

General spatial information is available from basemaps, but how do you format the data your organization has so it can be converted to points on a map? Data of interest often includes point locations of patients’ or clients’ residences and health care or other service delivery locations, such as the scenes of traffic accidents. If data includes street addresses, ZIP Codes, or other spatial identifiers, GIS has the tools to plot points of interest for use in analysis.

For the example in chapter 6, you need to spatially enable data that is in tabular form. You’ll geocode existing facilities within a county so they can be placed as points on a map. You also place patients on a ZIP Code map over a wide area. Having this data mapped, you can readily see potential service gaps. Then you map suitability measures for a health clinic location to aid in identifying locations in gap areas that would be an attractive site for a new facility.

Chapter 7: Processing and analyzing spatial data

What are some neighborhood factors that lead to child pedestrian injuries in a city? Is poverty a factor? What about the lack of safe public areas for play? In chapter 7, you explore the determinants of serious juvenile-pedestrian injuries for the purpose of designing prevention programs. The basis of your study is a sample of serious-injury data that has been geocoded and can be compared to census data on poverty and to map layers for streets, neighborhoods, and parks that have playgrounds and playing fields.

The GIS work in chapter 7 includes preparatory steps for extracting study region maps from county maps, and then focuses on detailed proximity analyses using park buffers, like those seen in figure 1.2.

Chapter 8: Transforming data using approximate methods

How can health-care analysts combine data from different, incompatible polygon boundary sets? Chapter 8 explores how to transform this data so it can be used for comparative analysis. Often the spatial unit of analysis for a health study is a custom set of polygon boundaries designed for the phenomenon at hand. An example is the hospital service areas and hospital referral regions used in the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care Project (http://www.dartmouthatlas.org) at the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire. Although appropriate for studying patterns in the quality of health care across the country, these custom areas have the limitation of not sharing boundaries with census statistical areas (that is, they are noncoterminous sets of boundaries). Thus, census data cannot be used directly for supportive analysis of these custom areas and must be spatially apportioned to the noncoterminous boundaries.

Another common case of noncoterminous data involves regional analysis of spatial areas such as emergency management service zones for a city where such zones become the de facto unit of spatial analysis. Detailed census variables on income, poverty, educational attainment, and so on are not easily attainable at these levels. Advanced GIS functionality such as using spatial joins, however, can produce some very accurate approximations (or apportionments) for transforming data from one set of polygons to another incompatible set.

Chapter 9: Using ArcGIS Spatial Analyst for demand estimation

Chapter 9 is an introduction to the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension. Spatial Analyst uses or creates raster datasets composed of grid cells to display data that is distributed continuously over space as one continuous surface. In this chapter, you prepare and analyze a demand surface map for the location of heart defibrillators in Pittsburgh, where demand is based on the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in which potential bystander help is available. You also learn how to use ArcGIS Spatial Analyst to create a poverty index surface combined with several census data measures from block and block group polygon layers.

Chapter 10: Studying food-borne-disease outbreaks

Chapters 10 and 11 provide a change of pace — opportunities for you to apply and extend the GIS skills and health applications you have learned in the previous nine chapters to new case studies that you develop. We provide the source data and guidelines for analysis, as well as a broad outline of steps; however, it is up to you to carry out the GIS work on your own in an independent case study. In chapter 10, you prepare map layers, including geocoding incidence addresses as the basis for analyzing outbreaks of food-borne illness. Then you use data to simulate the impact of an outbreak. You also do a proximity analysis based on patterns in reported disease cases.

Chapter 11: Forming local chapters of ACHE

Chapter 11 concludes this workbook with a second independent case study, following a setup similar to that in chapter 10. Staff members of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) want you to use GIS to help them set up ACHE chapters across the country that provide educational and other services to health-care professionals.

In chapter 11, you perform a buffer analysis of existing affiliates that propose becoming ACHE chapters. The buffers will help determine the territories that are served as well as the gaps that suggest where new chapters should be established. You do some work interactively using ArcGIS, but for steps that must be done repeatedly over time, you build an ArcGIS model that generates a macro to automate these steps.

Introduction to ArcGIS and map documents

This book is designed for use with ArcGIS 10.2 for Desktop software. ArcGIS is a full-featured GIS software application for visualizing, managing, creating, and analyzing geographic data. The more advanced levels of ArcGIS offer advanced data conversion and geoprocessing capabilities. ArcGIS has numerous extensions that include ArcGIS 3D Analyst for three-dimensional rendering of surfaces, ArcGIS Network Analyst for routing and other street network applications, and ArcGIS Spatial Analyst for generating and working with raster maps.

ArcGIS includes four application programs: ArcCatalog, ArcGlobe, ArcMap, and ArcScene. ArcCatalog is a utility program for file browsing, data importing and converting, and file maintenance functions (such as create, copy, and delete) — all with special features for GIS source data. You will use ArcCatalog instead of the Microsoft Windows utilities My Computer or Windows Explorer to manage GIS source data. ArcGlobe provides 3D capabilities to work seamlessly on a 3D globe. ArcMap is the primary interface for building, viewing, and analyzing conventional two-dimensional (2D) maps. ArcScene is comparable to ArcMap but for 3D maps.

GIS analysts use ArcMap to compose a map from basemap layers, and then carry out many kinds of analysis and produce several types of GIS outputs. A map composition is saved to a map document file and has a name, chosen by the user, and the .mxd file extension. For example, you will soon open the first map document in the chapter, Tutorial1-3.mxd.

A map document stores pointers (paths) to map layers, data tables, and other data sources for use in a map composition, but it does not store a copy of any data source. Consequently, map layers can be stored anywhere on your computer, local area network, or even on an Internet server, and be part of your map document. In this book, you will use data sources available from the data you will download from the Esri Press “Book Resources” webpage (see the following section).

Exercise data and software

Data for the book is available to download on the Esri Press “Book Resources” webpage, esripress.esri.com/bookresources. Click the appropriate book title, and then click the data link under “Resources” to download the exercise data. A 60-day trial of ArcGIS for Desktop software and extensions is available for readers at esri.com/trydesktop. You must download the data and have access to ArcGIS 10.2 for Desktop software to complete the tutorials in this book.

Learning about ArcGIS

The following tutorials will acquaint you with the functionality and user interface of ArcMap and ArcCatalog. You will start by using ArcCatalog to browse through the data sources used in figure 1.1, and then examine the completed project itself. In the remaining chapters, you will learn how to build, modify, and query data.

In the tutorials that follow, you need to be at your computer to carry out the numbered steps. Screen captures accompanying the steps illustrate important dialog boxes and output. Occasionally, we have added “Your turn” exercises after a series of steps. It is critical that you do these brief exercises to internalize the processes covered. Note that the appearance of the user interface is contantly changing, depending on your operating system and customization choices, so the windows in this book may not appear exactly like the windows on your screen.

Tutorial 1-1

Exploring the ArcCatalog user interface

1 Start Windows, and then click Start to start your programs. Click All Programs > ArcGIS > ArcCatalog 10.2. Depending on how ArcGIS has been installed, you may have a different navigation menu or a name other than ArcGIS. The left panel of ArcCatalog is called the Catalog tree. It is used to navigate to the data on your computer or network server, much like Windows Explorer.

2 Use the Connect to Folder tool on the ArcCatalog toolbar to make a connection to the \EsriPress\GISTHealth folder. In the Connect to Folder dialog, browse to GISTHealth and click OK. This will create a connection you will use to navigate to the tutorial data for the rest of this book.

3 In the Catalog tree, browse to \EsriPress\GISTHealth\Data\ by clicking the small plus signs (+) to expand the folders in which the GISTHealth data is installed. The default location for this folder is C:\EsriPress\ GISTHealth\Data, but it may be in a different location depending on where you or your instructor installed it. If you cannot find this folder, make sure it was installed properly.

4 After navigating to the Data folder, expand the United States geodatabase, UnitedStates.gdb. The right panel, called the Catalog display, contains three tabs: Contents, Preview, and Description. When you click the Contents tab, the datasets in the current folder are listed. The datasets currently listed represent spatial data, and the icon next to each file name indicates what type of geometry the data is built in: point, line, or polygon. (See facing page.)

5 In the Catalog tree, click USStates and click the Preview tab. Previewing data this way allows you to get a quick glimpse of the data without actually loading it into a map. You can also use this tab to preview the contents of a table.

6 At the bottom of the Catalog display, click the Preview arrow, click Table, and then use the horizontal scroll bar to view the attribute fields in the table. Each record in the table corresponds to one of the state polygons you previewed in the preceding step, and as you can see, there are quite a few attributes stored for each state, most of which are demographic. For example, by reading across the table, you could identify that the state of Washington is in the Pacific subregion and had a population of 5,894,121 in 2000 and 6,756,150 in 2010. We used the STATE_NAME attribute to label states in figure 1.1.

7 Click the Description tab at the top of the Catalog display. This tab describes metadata, which is data about data.

8 In the Catalog display, click the Contents tab.

Other folders in the \EsriPress\GISTHealth\ Catalog tree include Maps, where original map document files are located; MyAssignments, where you will save files to chapter folders if you are working in a classroom and are required to complete the assignments at the end of each chapter; and MyExercises, where you will save files as you complete tutorial exercises in each chapter. MyExercises contains a subfolder called FinishedExercises, which includes tutorial exercises completed by the book’s authors that you can use as needed.

YOUR TURN

Explore additional layers in UnitedStates.gdb. When you are finished, click the toggle key that has the minus sign (-) to the left of the UnitedStates.gdb folder icon in the Catalog tree to collapse that folder. Then close ArcCatalog.

Tutorial 1-2

Reviewing data source types

You will do most GIS file maintenance work in ArcCatalog, although it is instructive to view GIS files in a conventional file utility program. In this tutorial, you will examine two common Esri file formats used in GIS: a shapefile and a file geodatabase. A shapefile map layer has three or more files that have the same name but different file extensions, all stored in the same folder. A file geodatabase is a folder that has one or more map layers (and possibly other kinds of data) stored as feature classes. Both of these data types are common in the GIS industry, where the file geodatabase is a more modern format. Other less common GIS and spatial data formats that can be stored in this folder include an ArcInfo coverage and a CAD DXF (drawing exchange format). You will learn more about these formats in chapter 4.

1 On the taskbar, click Start, and then click Computer. The path to Computer may differ depending on which operating system you are using.

2 Browse to where your GISTHealth folder is installed (for example, C:\EsriPress\GISTHeath\).

3 Double-click Data > DataFiles to view the available data files.

Now you can review the Tracts shapefile, which actually consists of seven files that all have the same name, Tracts. These are US Census tracts for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

• The Tracts file that has the .shp extension has the features geometry and coordinates. For points, each record has a point and an x,y location. For line and polygon layers, each shape record has coordinates of a line segment or a polygon. Tracts, of course, consist of polygons.

• The Tracts file that has the .dbf extension has the feature attribute table in dBASE format. You can open and edit this file as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and as a Microsoft Access database, but such work must be done carefully and without deleting or adding records or changing the order of rows, which could result in corrupted data. The relationship between the .shp and .dbf files of a shapefile depends on the one-to-one physical arrangement of records in both files.

• The .sbx and .shx files contain indexes for speeding up searches and queries. The .prj file is a simple text file that has the map projection parameters of the layer.

• Finally, the .shp.xml file has the layer metadata, and you can open this file in a Web browser to read it.

4 In Computer, navigate up one level to GISTHealth\Data. The remaining folders in the Data folder are file geodatabases. Each file geodatabase includes a .gdb extension. A single file geodatabase can have one or more vector-map layers and data tables.

5 Double-click the UnitedStates.gdb folder icon. You cannot identify the files contained in a file geodatabase in My Computer. Always use ArcCatalog to maintain map layers and data tables stored in a personal geodatabase; otherwise, you will likely corrupt the layers.

6 Close My Computer.

YOUR TURN

Start ArcCatalog and explore the file geodatabases in the Data folder. Preview the feature classes in each geodatabase. Then close ArcCatalog.

Tutorial 1-3

Exploring the ArcMap user interface

To get started, you will open a completed map document that has health and other data to get the feel for ArcMap and health layers.

Open a map document

1 On the taskbar, click Start, and then click All Programs > ArcGIS > ArcMap10.2. Depending on how ArcGIS and ArcMap have been installed, you may have a different navigation menu or a name other than ArcGIS.

2 In the ArcMap - Getting Started dialog box, click Existing Maps > Browse for more.

3 In the Open ArcMap Document dialog box, browse to the drive where you installed the \EsriPress\GISTHealth\Maps folder (for example, C:\EsriPress\GISTHealth\Maps), select Tutorial1-3.mxd, and click Open.

Tutorial1-3.mxd is displayed in the ArcMap application window. The map currently contains the contiguous United States showing demographics related to female-headed households as both point and polygon features and male lung cancer mortality rates. The major components of the ArcMap interface are also identified.

The major components of the ArcMap application window include the following:

• The Menu bar has some items common to most Windows application packages, plus some that are unique to GIS.

• The map display is where the feature classes loaded into the map are drawn.

• The table of contents lists all the data in the map document by layer and allows you to change layer visibility and access layer properties. Currently, the List By Drawing Order button is selected at the top of the table of contents showing the order of map layers and their legends. By clicking the List By Source button at the top of the table of contents, you can also see the folder and file path to the source data of map layers and tables. ArcMap draws maps from the bottom up in the table of contents, so polygon feature layers, such as Lung Cancer Mortality, that would cover line or point feature layers, such as Rivers, must go on the bottom. You can see that only some of the layers are turned on — those that have selected check boxes in the Table of Contents.

• The Tools toolbar has frequently used tools and can be docked, if desired, by dragging it by its title bar to any boundary in the ArcMap interface. Similarly, you can undock it by dragging it to the desired location.

• The Status bar displays the map coordinates of the pointer location in the map display. In the preceding graphic, the pointer is over Omaha, Nebraska, and the coordinates for Omaha are displayed on the Status bar.

YOUR TURN

Experiment with turning map layers on and off by selecting and then clearing the check boxes to the left of each map layer in the table of contents. Start with layers currently turned off, from the top down, and turn each one on and then off. Then try various combinations. Keep in mind that the Female-Headed Households with Children layer is a strong indicator of poverty. Of course, not every such household is in poverty, but the tendency is strong. When you are finished, return the map document to its original condition, with layers turned on or off as shown in the preceding figure.

View map-layer attribute tables

1 In the table of contents, right-click Cities with 250,000 or Greater Population and click Open Attribute Table. The attribute table for Cities with 250,000 or Greater Population is displayed. This is the same sort of table you previewed in ArcCatalog.

2 Visually scan the map for a few cities listed in the table. Verify that there is a point plotted for each corresponding record in the table.

3 Close the table.

YOUR TURN

Open a few other tables and scan the contents.

View map layer properties

1 In the table of contents, right-click Cities with 250,000 or Greater Population and click Properties. In the Layer Properties dialog box, click the General tab. Layer Properties is an important dialog box for managing how layers behave and appear in ArcMap. Although there are many properties that can be set, it is good to review a few useful ones for now. For example, in the General window of Layer Properties, you can change the layer name by typing the name of your choice into the Layer Name text box.

2 In the Layer Properties dialog box, click the Source tab. The Source window provides bounding coordinates of the map layer (that is, its extent), the data type, location on the server or computer, geometry type, and projection.

3 Click the Symbology tab. The Symbology window provides many options for symbolizing vector-map layers. The cities layer uses a single symbol chosen by the authors, a purple circular point marker that has a black outline.

4 Click the Fields tab. The Fields window lists the layer’s attribute fields and their properties.

5 Click the Definition Query tab. The Definition Query window allows you to restrict what is displayed in a map layer. In this case, we used the POP2007 attribute to limit the cities displayed to those that had a population of 250,000 or more in the year 2007. This window changes only the display and does not remove the records from the source data.

6 Click the Labels tab. The Labels window allows you to label features using an attribute from the feature attribute table. We used NAME, which is the name of cities, in a purple font and a white halo mask. We also turned labeling on by selecting the check box at the top of the form.

7 Close Layer Properties.

YOUR TURN

Examine the properties of a few more layers, but do not make any changes. When you are finished, close ArcMap but do not save any changes.

Tutorial 1-4

Using and exporting a map

Fundamentally, when you use GIS for analysis, you are observing spatial patterns related to a problem, phenomenon, or issue of interest. In this case, the phenomenon is mortality of white males from lung cancer.

In this tutorial, you will clearly see strong spatial patterns and concentrations of mortality along the southeastern coast of the United States and other locations. You can recognize some correlations on the map, based on spatial arrangement alone. For example, the band of high mortality along the eastern border of Kentucky is in that state’s coal mining belt. Perhaps the white males succumbing to lung cancer in that area tend to be coal miners.

Some of the southeastern peak areas for mortality correspond to tobacco-growing areas of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, but high-mortality areas run beyond the tobacco fields. Perhaps being near tobacco-growing areas increases the likelihood of smoking and, therefore, lung cancer. The question then becomes, how far beyond the immediate tobacco-growing areas could such an influence exist? Regardless, it cannot account for the high mortality observed along the Mississippi River.

An additional correlation is poverty, which contributes to many health problems and perhaps increases exposure to factors leading to lung cancer. A strong indicator of poverty, and the only poverty indicator available in the working US counties data, is the percentage of female-headed households with children. As an example of the effectiveness of this indicator, in Pittsburgh at the tract level, the simple correlation between percentage of female-headed households with children and the percentage of total population below the poverty line is 0.67. Now you can see if there is any visual evidence of a positive correlation between this poverty indicator and white male lung cancer incidence.

For this poverty indicator, we used a size-graduated point marker and a dichromatic color scale. We used an equal-interval numeric scale of 4 percent width, where the darker shade of green signifies the lowest-value interval and the darker shade of orange signifies the highest-value interval. Also, the larger the diameter of circular point marker used, the higher the interval of the indicator variable.

Find and export a map

1 Start ArcMap and open Tutorial1-4.mxd. Select the check box to the left of the Percentage Female-Headed Households with Children map layer in the table of contents to turn that layer on. Immediately, you can see that this variable is promising as a correlation to the male lung cancer deaths because it is high in many of the same areas where lung cancer mortality is high. The current map, however, is zoomed out too far. You need a closer look at the southeastern United States. We have built a spatial bookmark for this purpose, which you will use next, to get an uncluttered, zoomed-in view of the map. Notice that the map scale in the figure is 1:20,000,000 for the entire United States. It will be different on your screen, because your screen is likely a different physical size from ours. Make a note of your scale.

2 On the Menu bar, click Bookmarks > Southeast. Using this bookmark helps considerably. There is a visual correlation between the variables, with both tending to be high in the same areas. Clearly, further examination would require a multivariate model. We have identified some promising variables: coal production, tobacco crops, adjacency to tobacco-growing areas, and poverty. For the present, however, you need a professional-quality map that could be used in a Microsoft Word document or a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. We have built a map layout for this purpose, which you will view next. Note that the map scale is much larger when zoomed in to 1:9,000,000, as shown in the figure.

3 On the Menu bar, click View > Layout View. The resulting map, which you will learn how to export for use in a document in chapter 3, is in layout view. ArcMap provides two general views: data view and layout view. Typically, you use data view to interact with your map data by browsing, symbolizing, and editing. You can also interact with your data in layout view, but its primary purpose is to finalize a map composition. In layout view, you can add a north arrow, a scale bar, a legend, and other map elements.

4 On the Menu bar, click File > Export Map.

5 Browse to \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyExercises\Chapter1\ and save the map as a JPEG file, resolution 150 dpi, called Tutorial1-4YourName.jpg.

6 On the Menu bar, click Bookmarks > U.S.

7 Close ArcMap. Do not save your changes.

Learning about GIS websites

Esri offers a website for sharing maps and map layers: ArcGIS Online (http://www.arcgis.com).

ArcGIS Online is a cloud-based system for sharing your data with others and accessing shared data that others have posted. One thing you can do with ArcGIS Online is share your symbolized data with others. If you create a map in ArcMap showing the results of an analysis, you can make a layer of that data in ArcMap, then post it to the Internet on ArcGIS Online, and share it with the public or selected colleagues.

A second thing you can do with ArcGIS Online is make a web-based map, using data available on ArcGIS Online that others have posted or Esri has made available. You can share that map with the public or selected colleagues.

In the following tutorials, you will be trying out these capabilities of ArcGIS Online. First you will be posting a layer file from ArcMap. Then you will be creating and saving a webmap.

Tutorial 1-5

Creating and sharing map layers

You can use ArcGIS Online to publish maps you create in ArcGIS for Desktop on the Internet. To do so, you’ll need to create layer packages for your map layers. Here are the major steps:

1. Create a map document in ArcMap.

2. After the map is symbolized and labeled, and each layer is documented in Layer Properties using the General tab, right-click the layer and click Create Layer Package. Then choose a storage location and file name on your computer.

A layer package is an .lpk file you save locally that encapsulates both data and symbolization. Layer packages can be used in ArcMap, ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Explorer Desktop.

Note: If you have a group layer in ArcMap, you can save the entire group layer (and all its map layers and layer symbolization) in a single layer package. So one “trick” is to put your entire map document’s map layers into a group layer. Then you can publish the entire map document easily, although using a group layer does not allow reuse of individual map layers by others. In this tutorial, a group layer has already been created for you. You will learn how to create group layers in chapter 3.

Create a layer package in ArcMap

1 Start ArcMap and open Tutorial1-5.mxd. The map document includes three layers: the percentage of female-headed households (single moms) by census tract in California, and major cities and counties for the state. All three layers are contained in one group layer called California Female-Headed Household Population Study.

2 In the table of contents, right-click California Female-Headed Household Population Study and click Create Layer Package.

3 In the Layer Package dialog box, select the “Save package to file” option.

4 Click the Browse button , browse through MyExercises to your Chapter1 folder, and then click Save. The layers in this group layer are saved to this folder as the California Female-Headed Household Population Study.lpk file, each symbolized according to the symbols in ArcMap.

5 Click Item Description. Provide a Summary and Tags for your layer package. For Summary, type “California Population Demographic Study.” For Tags, type “demographics, obesity, poverty, population, California.”

6 Click the Analyze and Share buttons. Creating the layer package takes time. Be patient while the layers are exported to the .lpk file.

7 Click OK. A message appears once the layer package is complete.

8 Close ArcMap.

Create an ArcGIS Online account

You are going to post the layer package you just made to ArcGIS Online. To access this capability, you will need an ArcGIS Online account.

1 In your browser, go to https://www.arcgis.com/.

2 Click the Sign In link in the upper right corner of the window.

3 Click “Create A Public Account”. Fill out the form and choose Create My Account.

Upload a layer package

1 Click ArcGIS, and on the ArcGIS Online home page, click the My Content link and then the Add Item button .

2 In the Add Item dialog box, click the Browse button, browse through MyExercises to your Chapter1 folder, and then click California Female-Headed Household Population Study.lpk. Click Open. The title automatically fills in, but you must add at least one tag for the layer.

3 In the Add Item dialog box, type obesity, population, poverty for tags. These layers could be used in these or other similar demographic studies.

4 Click Add Item. Be patient while your layer package is uploaded. Your layers will appear in your content area.

Share a layer package

1 Click the Share button .

2 In the Share dialog box, click “Everyone (public)” and then OK. Instead of sharing your uploaded content with everyone, you can limit it to members of a group that you create and ask members to join.

3 Click the My Content link. You will see that your layer package is now available.

4 Exit the website.

Tutorial 1-6

Creating health maps using ArcGIS Online content

ArcGIS Online is a website that not only allows you to share maps you create using desktop GIS, but it is also the Esri repository for maps, data, applications, and tools. ArcGIS Online includes content from Esri, its partners, and the GIS community at large. Anyone can share maps and data on ArcGIS Online. In this tutorial, you will create maps showing areas in California where there is a high percentage of overweight children and limited access to supermarkets and farmers’ markets.

Add the California Health Indicators layer

1 In your browser, go to https://www.arcgis.com/.

2 Click the Sign In link in the upper-right corner of the window and sign in using your ArcGIS Online Account.

3 Click the Map link.

4 Click the Basemap button and then Terrain with Labels for the basemap. Notice the other basemap options, including imagery or topographic maps.

5 In the “Find an address or place” box, type California, and press ENTER. Close the Location pop-up window. The map zooms to the state of California.

6 Click the Add Content to Map button and then Search for Layers.

7 In the Find box, type health California. In the box, select ArcGIS Online. Press GO.

8 Scroll through the results list, click California Health Indicators and then “Add to map”. The resulting map shows the percentage of overweight children for grades 5, 7, and 9, reported at the district and school levels. The darker red areas have higher percentages of overweight children. (See facing page.)

9 Click the Zoom In (+) button and pan the map until you see the bright red area near San Diego, California. The area of focus is southern California near the Mexican border. Be careful not to zoom in too close. Otherwise, your color coded map will appear as point symbols. If this happens, simply zoom out more.

10 Click Done Adding Layers.

Change layer transparency

1 In the Contents area, click the arrow to the right of the California Health Indicators layer, click Transparency, and drag the transparency bar to 50%. The shaded relief under the health indicator polygons is now visible.

Explore layer content and legends

1 Select the check box next to the California Health Indicators layer. This turns the layer off.

2 Select the check box again to turn the layer on.

3 Zoom and pan to San Diego Naval Air Station near San Diego Bay. The resulting map displays graduated point markers symbolizing the number of overweight children per school.

4 In the Contents list, click California Health Indicators (not its check box) and then % Overweight by School. The map legend shows the classifications for the number of overweight children by school.

5 Click the Show Map Legend button . The resulting map has a nice legend and is a detailed map.

YOUR TURN

Zoom in to see school names displayed on the map. Change the basemap to see street-level details. Zoom back to the San Diego Bay area. Change the basemap back to Terrain with Labels.

Explore a layer description

1 Click the Show Contents of Map button .

2 Click the arrow to the right of the Terrain with Labels layer and select Description. A web page describing the basemap layer appears.

3 Scroll to read the entire map description. When you are finished, click the Map link to go back to the ArcGIS My Map page.

Save the map

1 On the Map toolbar, click the Save Map button and then Save.

2 In the Title box, type Overweight Children By School and for the tag, type obesity.

3 In the “Save in folder” box, select your ArcGIS Online Account.

4 Click Save Map.

YOUR TURN

Select Add and Search for Layers. Type food as a layer to search for in ArcGIS Online and add the food layers called Supermarket Access Map Service and USA Farmers Markets map service to your map. The latter map service contains locations of farmers’ markets as reported to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Zoom to various areas of California and see if there is a correlation between overweight children by school and access to supermarkets and farmers’ markets. Practice turning layers on and off. Save your map as a new map called Overweight Children Compared to Food Sources with the tags obesity, food.

Tutorial 1-7

Using maps on a smart phone and tablets

Free ArcGIS apps are available from Google Play, the Apple App Store, Amazon Appstore, and Windows Marketplace. In these exercises you learn how to use the ArcGIS app on the iPhone but similar steps can be used on other smart devices. Open a map in ArcGIS Explorer Online

1 Search for ArcGIS at the Apple App Store and install Esri ArcGIS on your iPhone.

2 Open the Esri ArcGIS app.

3 Click the Sign In button.

4 Enter your ArcGIS Online (Esri account) username and password.

5 Click the icon in the upper left corner of the app.

6 Click My Maps.

7 Click the second map, Overweight Children Compared to Food Sources map. The map opens on your iPhone.

8 Use usual iPhone gestures to zoom in or out and pan to the Naval Base in San Diego, near the San Diego Bay.

9 Click the Identify button on the lower left of the screen. This provides access to three buttons: Legend for the map legend, Content for the table of contents, and Detail for documentation.

The legend appears by default.

10 Click the Content button. The layers you added in ArcGIS.com appear. You can turn layers on and off and change the basemap. The Detail button will show documentation about the map creation.

11 Click the Map button at the top left of the screen. You now see your map again.

YOUR TURN

Explore other smart app functions such as Measure Distance, Measure Area, and Bookmarks found on the top bar of the app.

Summary

GIS is a fascinating and valuable information technology, enabling spatial processing and visualization of data in ways never before possible. At the most basic level, GIS makes it easy to quickly compose and render maps from base layers. You can easily turn map layers on and off to study spatial patterns and correlations. You saw how GIS connects visual maps and underlying attribute data when you labeled map features and used choropleth and graduated point marker maps to render numeric scales for variables. In later tutorials, you will discover additional powerful uses for attribute data connected to map features.

Three components make GIS analysis possible for applications such as health care. The first is the national map infrastructure — a collection of basemaps, census and other data, and geocodes for uniquely identifying areas. In the United States, this resource is a public good, paid for by tax dollars and available for use at no or nominal cost. Commercial map layers are also available at reasonable cost and in many cases are essential for applications. This chapter introduced important components of map layers, including geographic and rectangular coordinate systems, projections between the two types of coordinate systems, and map scale.

The second component necessary for applications is user-friendly and powerful GIS software. ArcGIS for Desktop is the software used in this book. This chapter covered the primary uses and interfaces of the two major ArcGIS application packages: the ArcCatalog utility for browsing and maintaining spatial data files and ArcMap for creating maps and analyzing data. This chapter asked you to examine the input map layers and GIS data for studying lung cancer mortality in white males. The spatial patterns you observed suggest possible correlations within the mortality data, including poverty, tobacco growing, and coal mining.

The third component explores online GIS tools developed by Esri — ArcGIS Online. Although the analytic capabilities of these tools are not as advanced as desktop GIS, they are easy to use and enable beginning GIS users to work with, share, and explore existing map layers related to various health conditions such as obesity.

We should probably add a fourth component that is necessary for successful GIS applications: GIS analysts. Knowing how to use GIS is not a common skill, and there is a lot to learn. Nevertheless, this book will help you use GIS productively and efficiently, and make the best use of your limited and valuable time.

Assignment 1-1

Benchmark health GIS websites

Many health organizations make maps and basic GIS functions available online. Examples include the World Health Organization Public Health Mapping and GIS website (http://www.who.int/topics/geographic_information_systems/en/), the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/gis/), and the National Cancer Institute (http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus).

Note: URLs may change. If you cannot access these sites for the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, or National Cancer Institute, try to find similar sites for these organizations.

The objective of this assignment is to investigate the unique capabilities of GIS and its applications to health. Start by studying the aforementioned websites. Then browse the Internet to find an interesting health-related website that uses GIS (excluding the sites already listed).

Create a PowerPoint presentation

Create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation called Assignment1-1YourName.pptx and save it to your Chapter1 folder in MyAssignments. Include the following in your presentation:

• Title page, including title, website URL, and your name

• Purpose of the website and its use of GIS

• Screen captures of the website (about half a dozen), including maps

• A brief analysis of the GIS that includes:

• GIS content provided

• GIS functionality provided

• Effectiveness in providing information

• Ease of use

• Summary of what makes the website valuable in terms of functionality and content

WHAT TO TURN IN

If your work is to be graded, turn in the following files:

• Microsoft PowerPoint presentation: \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\ Chapter1\Assignment1-1YourName.pptx

Assignment 1-2

Create a map using GIS websites

Many organizations have data in tables or spreadsheets stored as addresses or latitude and longitude points and want to use interactive map viewers to view locations and other GIS layers over the Internet. For example, a health care organization might have street addresses for hospitals or clinics. These can be added to ArcGIS Online, then compared with layers using content provided by Esri, its partners, or the GIS community at large. In this assignment you add an Excel spreadsheet of mammography clinics for one county from your desktop computer, add population or other health layers from ArcGIS Online, and share the results with the public.

Start with the following:

\EsriPress\GISTHealth\Data\Datafiles\Clinics.csv – comma separated files of mammography clinics in Allegheny County, PA and surrounding areas. The file includes clinic addresses and ZIP Codes.

Create an ArcGIS map

Requirements are:

• In ArcGIS.com, add the mammography clinics comma separated file (using addresses) to a new map using the option “Add Layer From File”.

• From ArcGIS Online, find and add a population layer displaying the US Median Age.

• From ArcGIS Online, find another interesting related layer (for example, other population or health) and add it to your map.

• Save your map called Assignment1-2YourName using tags mammography, clinics, population.

• Share your finished map with the public. Note the URL for the map link created when you shared the map.

Create a PowerPoint presentation

Copy and paste your map image(s) into a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation

called Assignment1-2YourName.pptx and save it to your Chapter1 folder in

MyAssignments.

Include the following:

• Title slide including your name and the URL link to your map on ArcGIS.com that was created when you shared it.

• Slide explaining the slide(s) to come

• Slide including map of mammography clinics and US Median Age with observations (for example, are mammography clinics in locations where the population is over the age of 40?)

• Slide including map of mammography clinics and other layer found on ArcGIS.com with observations.

• Summary slide describing other data that would be useful for this study.

Hint: To create a screen capture of your slides, use the PRINT SCREEN key to save a graphic image of your map(s). Then use Copy and Paste or CTRL+V to paste the image into your PowerPoint slides. Mac users can press COMMAND+SHIFT+4 to save an image.

WHAT TO TURN IN

If your work is to be graded, turn in the following files:

• Microsoft PowerPoint presentation: \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\ Chapter1\Assignment1-2YourName.pptx

Assignment 1-3

Create and upload layer packages

Sharing map layers that you create using your ArcGIS for Desktop application will allow others to benefit from your map expertise. In this assignment, you will create additional population and health layers using a map document you used earlier in this chapter.

Create population and health layer packages

Start ArcMap and open map document Tutorial1-4.mxd.

Create layer packages for the following map layers:

• Cities with 250,000 or Greater Population called MajorUSCities.lpk and saved to your Chapter1 folder in MyAssignments

• States called States.lpk and saved to your Chapter1 folder in MyAssignments

• Percentage Female-Headed Households with Children called PercentageFHHChildren.lpk and saved to your Chapter1 folder in MyAssignments

• Lung Cancer Mortality per 100,000 White Males, 1970 – 1994, called WhiteMaleLungCancerMortality70_94.lpk and saved to your Chapter1 folder in MyAssignments

Add these layer packages to your ArcGIS Online account in the My Content section. These layer packages will then be ready to share with others should you choose to do so.

WHAT TO TURN IN

If your work is to be graded, turn in the following files:

• Layer packages:

• EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\Chapter1\MajorUSCities.lpk

• \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\Chapter1\States.lpk

• \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\Chapter1\PercentageFHHChildren.lpk

• \EsriPress\GISTHealth\MyAssignments\Chapter1\ WhiteMaleLungCancerMortality70_94.lpk

If instructed to do so, instead of individual files, turn in a compressed file, Assignment1-3YourName.zip, that includes all the preceding files. Do not include path information in the compressed file.

References

Clarke, K. C. 2003. Getting Started with Geographic Information Systems. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Featherly, K. 2004. “Battling Bioterror.” Healthcare informatics Online. http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/issues/2004/02_04/cover.htm#disease (no longer available).

Hagland, M. 2004. “Harnessing Efficiency.” Healthcare Informatics Online. http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/issues/2004/02_04/cover.htm#workflow (no longer available).

Johnson, M., W. L. Gorr, and S. Roehrig. 2005. “Location of Service Facilities for the Elderly.” Annals of Operations Research 136, no. 1: 329 – 49.

Kennedy, E. 2004. “Statement on the Introduction of the Health Care Modernization, Cost Reduction, and Quality Improvement Act”. http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/04/05/2004513C28.html (no longer available).

Protti, D. J. 2005. “The Use of Computers in Health Care Can Reduce Errors, Improve Patient Safety, and Enhance the Quality of Service: There is Evidence.” Special Report: IT in the Health-Care Industry. The Economist 65 (April 30, 2005). http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/worldview/protti2 (no longer available).