GeoMedStat: an integrated spatial surveillance system to track air pollution and associated healthcare events

Abstract

Abstract. Air pollutants, such as particulate matter with a diameter ≤2.5 microns (PM2.5) and ozone (O3), are known to exacerbate asthma and other respiratory diseases. An integrated surveillance system that tracks such air pollutants and associated disease incidence can assist in risk assessment, healthcare preparedness and public awareness. However, the implementation of such an integrated environmental health surveillance system is a challenge due to the disparate sources of many types of data and the implementation becomes even more complicated for a spatial and real-time system due to lack of standardised technological components and data incompatibility. In addition, accessing and utilising health data that are considered as Protected Health Information (PHI) require maintaining stringent protocols, which have to be supported by the system. This paper aims to illustrate the development of a spatial surveillance system (GeoMedStat) that is capable of tracking daily environmental pollutants along with both daily and historical patient encounter data. It utilises satellite data and the groundmonitor data from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Environemental Protection Agenecy (EPA), rspectively as inputs estimating air pollutants and is linked to hospital information systems for accessing chief complaints and disease classification codes. The components, developmental methods, functionality of GeoMedStat and its use as a real-time environmental health surveillance system for asthma and other respiratory syndromes in connection with with PM 2.5 and ozone are described. It is expected that the framework presented will serve as an example to others developing real-time spatial surveillance systems for pollutants and hospital visits.

Geospatial technology in environmental health applications

“…The same report estimated that asthma killed more than 1000 per day in 2016 (GAN 2018). It is well established that air pollutants, particularly PM2.5 and ozone, exacerbate asthma and other respiratory diseases (Faruque et al 2014).…”

Geographic Medical History: Advances in Geospatial Technology Present New Potentials in Medical Practice

“…However, these monitoring facilities require expensive instruments, specialized trained personnel and costly maintenance. Therefore, such facilities are sparsely located, for example, for daily PM2.5 data there are only 320 monitoring facilities in the entire US (Faruque, et al, 2014a). There has been a trend in recent years to increase the spatio-temporal coverage of the air pollution information by combining the low-cost portable ambient sensors and the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) into one system which often referred to as he Next Generation Air Pollution Monitoring System (TNGAPMS) (Gayle, 2016;Yw, et al, 2015).…”

“…One such system is GeoMedStat, developed by the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), that generates daily Ozone and PM2.5 estimates for the state of Mississippi utilizing NASA satellite and EPA ground monitored data to study the association of daily hospital admissions due to asthma (Faruque, et al, 2014a;Morain and Budge, 2008). Figure 2 schematically shows the process flow for daily geospatial surface modelling for ground level PM2.5 (GPL) and ozone for GeoMedStat.…”