In 2004, identification of patients infected with the same Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain in New York, New York, USA, resulted in an outbreak investigation. The investigation involved data collection and analysis, establishing links between patients, and forming transmission hypotheses. Fifty-four geographically clustered cases were identified during 2003–2009. Initially, the M. tuberculosis strain was drug susceptible. However, in 2006, isoniazid resistance emerged, resulting in isoniazid-resistant M. tuberculosis among 17 (31%) patients. Compared with patients with drug-susceptible M. tuberculosis, a greater proportion of patients with isoniazid-resistant M. tuberculosis were US born and had a history of illegal drug use. No patients named one another as contacts. We used patient photographs to identify links between patients. Three links were associated with drug use among patients infected with isoniazid-resistant M. tuberculosis. The photographic method would have been more successful if used earlier in the investigation. Name-based contact investigation might not identify all contacts, particularly when illegal drug use is involved.
Teaching GIS involves teaching ethical and moral thinking as a distinct engagement with the use, applications, and responsibilities of GIS professionals. Over the past 20 years scholars (particularly those affiliated with the discipline of Geography) have contributed critiques of the instrumental nature of GIS as well as reflective case studies that seek to demonstrate how the technology can be used to promote social justice. During the same period a profession of GIS developed as governmental and private use of GIS burgeoned; a marker for the professionalization of GIS in the United States can be found in the observation that by mid-2009 over 4,500 individuals had earned certification as GIS professionals. Requirements for professional certification in the U.S. include practitioners' commitment to adhere with a formal Code of Ethics and Rules of Conduct. Meanwhile, U.S. higher education institutions have rushed to develop practice-oriented certificate and degree programs in response to the increasing demand for qualified GIS professionals in industry and government. Professional programs differ from academic degree programs in that most are designed to produce practitioners rather than scholars. In general, the rich literature in GIS and Society and Critical GIS is more useful to students and instructors in academic programs than those in professional programs. The objective of the National Science Foundation-funded GIS Professional Ethics Project (http://gisprofessionalethics.org) we describe in this chapter is to provide pedagogical practice and resources for American students and academics. The project combines the perspectives and experience of GIS educators and applied ethicists. The project has produced open educational resources (especially formal case studies with explicit linkages to the Code and Rules) to help professional GIS higher education programs prepare current and future practitioners to recognize and engage ethical problems.
In a highly immigrant, urban setting, households could be approached for recruitment of women to participate in the National Children's Study with consent rates equal to those experienced in clinical settings. Refinement of the pregnancy screener and other recruitment materials presents an opportunity to optimize recruitment, improve the representativeness of study participants, and improve the cost-effectiveness of study execution.
Recent advances in technologies that allow for the collection of volunteered geographic information (VGI) are providing new opportunities for health research. These technologies provide for the collection of time-sensitive, fl uid data from a broad pool of subjects using sophisticated yet easy-to-use data collection tools -principally the smartphone and other location-aware devices. Never before has it been so easy for health researchers to collect and analyze real-time location-based data. The result of which can provide continuously updated datasets that often capture a more than just a snapshot of events or environmental factors. These technologies also allow the researcher to create novel datasets that do not presently exist. However, the use of such technologies to collect potentially identi fi able data poses risks to both the researcher and the subject. The tools introduce new challenges and ethical problems if used improperly for health research. This chapter investigates both the potential of VGI in public health research while discussing some challenges of using technology platforms that can leverage and provide collection tools for volunteered geographic information.
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