Geospatial information infrastructures to address spatial needs in health: Collaboration, challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Abstract:Most health-related issues such as public health outbreaks and epidemiological threats are better understood from a spatial-temporal perspective and, clearly demand related geospatial data sets and services so that decision makers may jointly make informed decisions and coordinate response plans. Although current health applications support a kind of geospatial features, these are still disconnected from the wide range of geospatial services and datasets that geospatial information infrastructures may bring into health. In this paper we are questioning the hypothesis whether geospatial information infrastructures, in terms of standards-based geospatial services, technologies, and data models as operational assets already in place, can be exploited by health applications for which the geospatial dimension is of great importance . This may be certainly addressed by defining better collaboration strategies to uncover and promote geospatial assets to health community. We discuss the value of collaboration, as well as the opportunities that geographic information infrastructures offer to address geospatial challenges in health applications.

GeoFog4Health: a fog-based SDI framework for geospatial health big data analysis

“…Such barriers in extensively sharing geospatial health data restrain the effectiveness in understanding and responding to disease outbreaks. For overcoming such challenges in health SDI, sharing and mapping of geospatio-temporal disease information in an inter-operable framework based on OGC specifications under fog computing environment is the need of the hour [30].…”

eHealth Management Platform for Screening and Prediction of Down’s Syndrome in the Republic of Panama

“…Geographical information systems are systems that use latitude and longitude allowing data geo reference [1] [3] [18]. This geographical reference applied to health information data allows the development of useful tools.…”

“…This geographical reference applied to health information data allows the development of useful tools. For example, we could detect geographic causes of diseases or follow the spread of infectious diseases with updated online information [18].…”

Event-Driven Distributed Information Resource-Focusing Service for Emergency Response in Smart City with Cyber-Physical Infrastructures

“…Data resources consist of archived data (e.g., basic geographic data, archived historical sensing data, remote sensing images, unmanned aerial vehicle images, RFID data, and video monitoring data) and real-time data streams (e.g., monitoring data for city water, electricity, fuel, and gas supplies) produced by sensing webs. Service resources include geospatial data services built on interoperable standards [15], e.g., the Web Feature Service (WFS) [16] for geographical features, the Web Map Service (WMS) [17] for geo-registered map images, the Web Coverage Service for raster data, the Sensor Observation Service (SOS) [18] for near-real-time sensor observations, the Web Processing Service (WPS) [19] for encapsulating analysis and decision models for smart cities, the Sensor Event Service (SES) [20] for filtering of and subscription to sensor observations (events), and the Web Notification Service (WNS) [21] for message notification. Meanwhile, various public emergencies, such as security incidents, transportation accidents, and accidents involving public facilities and equipment, occur frequently and can result in heavy casualties and economic losses [22].…”