Embedded Files
Community Mapping for Community Health
Community Mapping for Community Health
Community health refers to promoting healthy living and health outcomes at the community level (CDC,2017). The term community incorporates geographic areas and specified groups of people. Although individual health conditions are primarily determined by genetics, environmental and external factors can also influence an individual's health. These actors influence socioeconomic factors, physical environment, health behaviors, and clinical care ability. The primary goal of community health is to provide preventive care.
Community mapping is a process for generating geospatial data through collaborative group work, using mapping, technology to identify, understand, analyze, resolve, and disseminate community issues.
Three intentions for community projects:
Education - Participants learning about an issue(s) important to their community
Engagement - Participants becoming more actively engaged in at least one public or community process
Empowerment - Participants being newly equipped with information or data to apply to a community problem or issue
Table 1. Coronavirus new cases displayed by state using Geographic Information System (GIS).
Mapping with Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Mapping with Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system for capturing, storing, querying, analyzing, and displaying location-based data.
GIS helps identify at-risk or minority populations within a community because the visualization can differentiate data in multiple ways, such as color and space differences, and lighten understanding of data intuitively, as displayed in Table 1.
COVID-19 Mapping
COVID-19 Mapping
Figure 1. Deaths related to COVID-19 in Tennessee counties as of November 2021.
County Health Rankings Mapping
County Health Rankings Mapping
Figure 2. Map of alcohol-related deaths in the United States by county.
Page updated
Report abuse