Geographic Visualization to Support Epidemiology in Bulgaria Anthony

Geographic Visualization to Support Epidemiology in Bulgaria Anthony C. Robinson Geo. VISTA Center Department of Geography The Pennsylvania State University

Outline • Motivation • Introduction to Geographic Visualization • The ESTAT Toolkit • Using ESTAT to explore health in Bulgaria • Future Directions

Motivation • Health outcomes are closely tied to place and time • Epidemiology requires tools to help explore massive digital databases • Geographic Visualization is a new way to deal with these constraints • Geo-Visualization can help with analysis of health issues in Bulgaria

Geographic Visualization Common GIS – Static maps and graphics – Designed for prescribed analysis – Provides a single view Geo-Visualization – Interactive maps and graphics – Designed for data exploration – Multiple, coordinated views

Geo-Visualization at Penn State • Geo. VISTA – Geographic Visualization Science, Technology and Applications Center • Geo. VISTA Center creates new Geo-Viz tools for a wide range of application contexts: – – Spatial Epidemiology Emergency Management Intelligence Analysis Climate Change

ESTAT • The Exploratory Spatio-Temporal Analysis Toolkit Scatterplot Choropleth Map Time Series Graph Parallel Coordinate Plot

ESTAT • Designed with support from the USA National Cancer Institute (NCI) • Developed by software engineers at Geo. VISTA • I worked with Epidemiologists at NCI from 200305 to design and evaluate ESTAT • Focused on visualizing cancer incidence, mortality, and socio-economic indicators

Application of ESTAT in USA • We have worked closely with health analysts to explore spatial patterns • ESTAT is intended to help users create new hypotheses or modify those that already exist • One particularly odd pattern has emerged: – Lung Cancer Mortality & Annual Precipitation

Exploring Health in Bulgaria • Data from BG National Center for Health Informatics, Data Presentation System • Data from BG National Statistical Institute 2001 Census results • 472 variables for 28 Oblasts – Incidence/Mortality time series (1996 – 2004) – Health care indicators – Population and social covariates

Exploring Health in Bulgaria ESTAT Demonstration

ESTAT Technical Details • Data requirements: ESRI Shapefile with corresponding databases (in. dbf or. csv formats) • Computer requirements: 512 m. of RAM, installation of the Java environment • Most computers built within the past 5 years will run ESTAT with little trouble

Open-Source Tools • ESTAT and all of the tools we build at Geo. VISTA are Open Source • This means that the programs are open to all uses and that the source code is free to anyone who wishes to extend it • In short – ESTAT is free for you to use and modify as you wish!

Future Development • We are currently working to implement spatial statistic methods into ESTAT • ESTAT will be extended with a tool designed to detect clusters among variables • Soon you will be able to save and share your exploration with others

What We Can Do • Collaborate to explore and analyze relevant health issues in Bulgaria • Let us put your data into ESTAT! • We can also work together to design a custom version of ESTAT for Bulgaria

Мерси! This presentation and ESTAT with Bulgaria Data: http: //www. personal. psu. edu/acr 181/bulgaria. html For more about the Geo. VISTA Center: http: //www. geovista. psu. edu/ For academic papers see: http: //www. personal. psu. edu/acr 181/portfolio. html