Health Geoinformatics, PB CERT (Online)

The LLU health geoinformatics (LLUHGIS) program continues to explore new health applications of GIS technology. Thus, LLUHGIS has become the fulcrum for spatial technology in health applications in interschool work, research, and service activities. LLUHGIS strives to maintain its status as a premier provider of health geoinformatics resources for the current and future public health workforce in the United States while continuing efforts to enhance geoinformatics capacity in countries with developing economies to advance fully interoperable information systems in many public health organizations. 

Over the years, LLUHGIS has demonstrated leadership in the health geoinformatics field by achieving three important GIS educational "firsts."  The school’s faculty designed and taught the first graduate-level GIS course offered at a U.S. School of Public Health in 1996. This achievement was followed by launching the country's first health geographics bachelor's degree in 1999. LLU also instituted the first post-baccalaureate graduate-level certificate in Health Geoinformatics, designed to complement existing degrees or offered as professional continuing education.   

Three major operational activities that exist within LLUHGIS include Academic and workforce development, Health research, and GIS professional services. These activities are supported by the LLUHGIS Laboratory.  

By the end of the program, students will be able to:

• Apply principles of geospatial information science to health research and practice.
• Use state-of-the-art GIS software and techniques for accessing the spatially defined health information for building useful geodatabase.
• Use effective geospatial data while producing and publishing customized maps and other visual displays of health data.
• Employ GIS-based methods and techniques of spatial analysis that support health research and decision making in public health practice and policy.
• Competently apply geospatial technology and methods in at least one key area of health geographics, such as disease mapping, tracking and assessment of environmental hazards exposure, health planning and policy, population health, health education and communication, and analysis of access to health services.
• Implement and manage health GIS projects in government, nongovernment, and community settings.

LLUH GIS is actively involved in researching new insights and innovative solutions to health problems using geospatial technology. LLUGIS also supports faculty, staff, students, and community partners engaged in academic research projects that use geospatial technologyvb

Project Title	Image	Description
Project ENRRICH: A Public Health Assessment of Residential Proximity to a Goods Movement		Funded by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), a team of faculty, researchers, and community members from the School of Public Health collected data on the health status of several thousand people living closest to the BNSF San Bernardino rail yard. The use of geospatial tools was an integral component of this project. http://www.aqmd.gov/docs/default-source/clean-air-plans/clean-communities-plan/enrrich_final_report_29may2014.pdf
Turtle Awareness and Protection Studies (TAPS), Bay Islands, Honduras		Hawksbill and green sea turtles: International voyagers of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This project led by Dr. Steve Dunbar sought to increase awareness and understanding of juvenile hawksbill and green sea turtles in Honduras by tagging and mapping their locations as they moved through the water column and across the sea surface. http://www.seaturtle.org/PDF/DunbarSG_2010_InOceanglobe_p87-103.pdf
Taphonomy of fossil turtles and microvertebrates, and sedimentology, of the Eocene Bridger Formation, Wyoming		This study was led by Dr. Leonard Brand to study abundant fossil turtles, and their relationship to other vertebrate fossils and the associated sediments http://ftp.llu.edu/lbrand/bridger/bridger.htm
Indigent Psychiatric Need in California		Spatial estimation techniques were used to estimate the proportion of severe mental illness among households with incomes at less than 200% of the poverty level compared to all households http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11414-007-9103-1
Organ Transplantation in California		A study to determine the geographic variation and factors related to access to kidney transplantation in California.  https://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health01/papers/hc01_p04a/hc01_p04a.html
Novel measurement of spreading pattern of influenza epidemic by using weighted standard distance method: retrospective spatial statistical study of influenza, Japan, 1999–2009		GIS was used to analyze >11.1 million cases of influenza like illness (ILI) in Japan from 1999 to 2009 based on national surveillance data. http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/11/1/20
A Pilot Survey on the Prevalence of Clinical Challenges to Identify and Restore Unknown Dental Implants.		https://meridian.allenpress.com/joi/article-abstract/47/1/63/426173/A-Pilot-Survey-on-the-Prevalence-of-Clinical?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Recruiting population controls for case-control studies in sub-Saharan Africa: The Ghana Breast Health Study		A population enumeration and sampling strategy was developed to facilitate use of population controls in a breast cancer case-control study conducted in Ghana. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215347
Episodic continental arc magmatic tempos of the Peruvian Arc		Large scale spatial-temporal study of the magmatic history of the Peruvian Andes with a GIS dashboard to view data interactively.

LLUGIS is actively involved in research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems using geospatial technology. LLUGIS also actively supports faculty that are engaged in funded academic research projects that use geospatial technology. Below are some current and previously funded and unfunded research activities with LLUHGIS’s involvement.

• Novel measurement of spreading pattern of influenza epidemic by using weighted standard distance method: retrospective spatial statistical study of influenza, Japan, 1999–2009
• Medicare P4P Demonstration Project in Heart Failure: Is it Pay for Performance or Pay for Punishment?
• Zip Codes or Street Addresses? Comparing Ambient Ozone Exposures for Alternative Spatial Resolutions of Cohort Subjects
• Spatial Relations Between Tobacco Pipe Use and Infant Mortality in Cambodia
• A spatial needs assessment of indigent acute psychiatric discharges in California
• Extending Disease Surveillance with GIS
• A Balloon Mapping Approach to Forecast Increases in PM10 from the Shrinking Shoreline of the Salton Sea
• Small area analysis methods in an area of limited mapping: exploratory geospatial analysis of firearm injuries in Port-au-Prince, Haiti