Research Project
8933106
Researchers and public planners need simple and efficient means to combine public data resources (Health.gov and GIS maps) interactively with other sources of geospatial data at a local level. Working with data resources currently is ad hoc, expensive, and cumbersome because there are no common schema or interfaces. Further, no systems combine immediate and subjective information with large-scale resources. We will design manipulation tools to merge data from different resources and enable them to be easily explored, combined, and visualized by non-programmer users. The tools promise dramatic improvement in limiting chronic disease, assuring access to health resources and improving quality of life in the built environment. This project will create a platform to combine and visualize data that will improve communication between researchers and policy makers. A further innovation is combining data from a facilitated voluntary geographic information (f-VGI) and with other GIS coded data. A prototype f-VGI will be tested in a community mapping application with smartphones capturing facilitated user input and location. When completed in Phase 2, the system will allow investigators to conduct health assessments, particularly with geo-spacial data, without needing special training or support in programming, information technologies or geographic analysis.
