DEVELOPING WEB-BASED MAPPING SERVICES FOR PUBLIC HEALTH APPLICATIONS

Delivering data and information in a timely and efficient manner is imperative for providing decision makers crucial information that could impact the well-being of humans, especially in the event of a disaster. Equally important is providing data and information in forms that are easily used. Advances in web mapping and related technologies open new doors for data providers and users that, under ideal circumstances, can deliver data and information in near-real time. In the public health community these technologies are being used to enhance disease and syndromic surveillance systems, visualize environmentally-related events such as dust storms, and to provide focused mapping and analysis capabilities on the desktop. While there are several decision support systems (DSS) in use by public health officials, many do not utilize geospatial technologies. These systems typically monitor syndromes and disease outbreaks by accessing databases that contain statistics collected from a variety of sources. Some of these data are provided by health care workers, while others are derived from surveys and similar sources. A few DSSs are beginning to integrate geospatial information technologies into their decision processes. The Rapid Syndrome Validation Project (RSVP), BioSense, and the Syndrome Reporting Information System (SYRIS) are early examples of decision support tools that include mapping components in their toolset. Under a cooperative agreement funded by NASA, the Earth Data Analysis Center at the University of New Mexico is developing a web-mapping client and supporting data services for the Public Health Applications in Remote Sensing (PHAiRS) project. This mapping interface client will provide a toolset that allows public health officials to visualize and analyze data output from