Changes in Built Environment Change Walking Patterns
A university in Hong Kong looked at walking behavior before and after changes to the built environment and published results in the International Journal of Health Geographics. The use of walking diaries (which I guess are written down) vs. GPS tracking makes me wonder about the accuracy of the data. Still, changes were seen.
Conclusions: In this longitudinal study, changes to the built environment were associated with changes in walking behaviors. Use of GIS combined with walking diaries presents a practical method for mapping and measuring changes in the built environment and walking behaviors, respectively.
It turns out
the virus has six common strains, or genotypes, which respond differently to different treatments and vaccines. Knowing which strains are common in which areas is essential for planning eradication campaigns.
In a paper published today in Hepatology, researchers from the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford and Imperial College London provide the first comprehensive survey of hepatitis C genotypes across the world.
That information is key as treatment and potential vaccines are developed. The data for the map came form 1200 studies that cover 90% of the world population. (Part of the world Hep C map above)
New Health GIS Course Uses QGIS
GIS Techniques for M&E of HIV/AIDS and Related Programs was released on Monday by Global Health Learning. It's the newest of a few courses offered on M&E, monitoring and evaluation. There is one other GIS one from (2011): Geographic Approaches to Global Health.
The GIS Techniques coursework is two hours and labs with QGIS add another three hours. Best I can tell all the courses are in the public domain.
Al Jazeera offers a map of Ebola cases, showing affected areas and the number of suspected cases and deaths with data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Liberia's health ministry.