Blog Entry #5 – How Place Matters to my Discipline-
Why Does Place Matter
Place matter for many reason, you could say it determines one’s life choices. We have learned in class that different areas breed different types of people. Whether that be in poor or rich areas, crime oriented areas, or the city or suburbs. In class we study the different types of maps and compare the different areas we look at based on: race, age, income, education or the availability of grocery stores, how much fast food there is, liquor stores, and healthcare. Place matters to how healthy individuals are whether they are prone to illness or obesity. The different types of maps give us a lay out of what areas are in more need than others. This has helped me recognize that place does matter when looking at any aspect of life. In class we recently watched a short film titled “Unnatural Causes: Place Matters (part 5)” it discusses how health is determined by the economic, physical and the emotional environment you live in. It talks about a lous man at age 49 pretty much dying of congestive heart failure; why because he lives in Richmond, California. Richmond was once wealthy predominantly white city, it has now become primarily minorities with a large Laus community; Richmond is very poor and run down. With this environment being poorly taken care of means dirty streets and dirty air; which inevitably affected this man’s health. As the video tells us, Richmond is a neighborhood that is crime oriented littered with abandoned cars, homes, businesses, but also very few grocery stores with plenty of fast food and liquor stores. All this contributes to the poor health within the people of Richmond such as the 49 year old man with congestive heart failure. This interesting because you would not expect where you live can be the reason for illness and death, all of this relates to my field of study, health.
Going into the health field to become a nurse knowing what areas need more healthcare means I know which areas has more jobs. In the article “GIS and Health Care” we will literally discuss how GIS contributes to health care. Within this article Mclafferty discuss the importance of GIS in planning out health care locations. In many areas health care is not easily accessible or affordable to the surrounding people. GIS is able to offer the insight healthcare planners need to set up locations that fit economic needs. They are able to know which location has a high population of people with health issues based on: race, age, and sex.
We can see the importance of GIS in the health care and the importance their is in needing to set up the proper locations to areas in need. This next article will go on to discuss how GIS can help find out more information with the recent HIV/AID epidemic. “Health GIS and HIV/AIDS Studies: Prespective and Retrospective” goes on to tell us that “(1) geographical distribution and variation of diseases (2) analysis of spatial and temporal trends (3) identifying gaps in immunizations (4) mapping populations at risk and stratifying risk factors (5) documenting health care needs of a community and assessing resource allocations (6) forecasting epidemics (7) planning and targeting interventions (8) monitoring diseases and interventions over time (9) managing patient care environments, materials, supplies and human resources (10) monitoring the utilization of health centers (11) route health workers, equipments and supplies to service locations (12) publishing health information using maps, etc.” We can see how important it is for health care providers to have GIS to be able to locate what they are in need of the most; especially when we look at the HIV/AID epidemic. This is just one health epidemic that uses GIS with the health field having this tool expands the view for all types of health related needs.
After reviewing these articles and what I have learned in University 298 I have a better understanding of how “place” and “GIS’ relate to everything but the importance of it in health care. As the articles pointed out they both use GIS to determine where to establish health care facilities. If I were deciding where to work based on the rate of illness, in other words how busy I am going to be and the type of care I will be able to give, I would look to GIS.
GIS would be able to tell me the income of the area, the type of care provided, and what the common illness is in different age ranges. I would personally look to be able to practice in an area that needs better healthcare, places such as Richmond from the video we watched “Unnatural Causes: Place Matters (part 5).” I find that the lower income areas need more health care facilities and better health care service, as we saw low income areas are prone to more illness just because that is where they live. Overall I agree that “GIS” and “place” have an effect when choosing a field or a place to settle down and live or work.
Works Cited
McLafferty, Sara L. “GIS and Health Care.” Annual Review of Public Health, 24.1 (2003): 25-42.
Kandwal, Rashmi, P K Garg, and R D Garg. “Health GIS and HIV/AIDS Studies: Prespective and Retrospective.” Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 42.4 (2009): 748-755.
