Web GIS in practice II: interactive SVG maps of diagnoses of sexually transmitted diseases by Primary Care Trust in London, 1997 – 2003

Maged Boulos,Michael Smith,Chris Russell

doi:10.1186/1476-072x-4-4

Maged Boulos, Michael Smith + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072x-4-4

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Abstract

BackgroundThe rates of Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in England have been rising steadily since the mid 1990s, making them a major public health concern. In 2003, 672,718 people were diagnosed with an STD in England, and around one third of those cases were diagnosed in London.ResultsUsing GeoReveal v1.1 for Windows, we produced Web-based interactive choropleth maps of diagnoses of STDs by Primary Care Trust (PCT) in London for the years from 1997 to 2003 . These maps are in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format and require a freely available Adobe SVG browser plug-in to be displayed. They are based on data obtained from the House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 15 October 2004. They show steadily rising rates of STDs in London over the covered seven-year period. Also, one can clearly see on the maps that PCTs located in central London had the highest numbers of STD diagnoses throughout the mapped seven years. A companion bar chart allows users to instantly compare the STD figure of a given PCT for a given year against the average figure for all 25 mapped PCTs for the same year, and also compare those figures across all seven years. The maps offer users a rich set of useful features and functions, including the ability to change the classification method in use, the number of ranges in the map, and the colour theme, among others.ConclusionsWizard-driven tools like GeoReveal have made it very easy to transform complex raw data into valuable decision support information products (interactive Web maps) in very little time and without requiring much expertise. The resultant interactive maps have the potential of further supporting health planners and decision makers in their planning and management tasks by allowing them to graphically interrogate data, instantly spot trends, and make quick and effective visual comparisons of geographically differentiated phenomena between different geographical areas and over time.SVG makes an ideal format for such maps. SVG is a World Wide Web Consortium non-proprietary, XML-based vector graphics format, and is an extremely powerful alternative to Macromedia® Flash and bitmap graphics.

Highlights

The rates of Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in England have been rising steadily since the mid 1990s, making them a major public health concern
Trends and comparisons derived from this Hansard table and other sources, e.g., demographic, deprivation/social exclusion, transport and existing GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) clinic data sets, are crucial for the decision maker wanting, for example, to: The House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 15 October 2004 included an answer by Melanie Johnson MP, Minister for Public Health at the Department of Health, to a question by Sarah Teather MP on "how many cases of diagnosed STDs there were in each Primary Care Trust (PCT) in London in each year since 1997"
Using GeoReveal, a tool from Graphical Data Capture Ltd, we produced Web-based interactive choropleth maps of diagnoses of STDs by PCT in London for the years from 1997 to 2003, which readers can browse at http:// healthcybermap.org/PCT/STDs/ (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

The rates of Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in England have been rising steadily since the mid 1990s, making them a major public health concern. Effective comparisons between the figures for different PCTs or between the seven data sets for the years from 1997 to 2003 Such data patterns, trends and comparisons derived from this Hansard table and other sources, e.g., demographic, deprivation/social exclusion, transport and existing GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) clinic data sets, are crucial for the decision maker wanting, for example, to: The House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 15 October 2004 included an answer by Melanie Johnson MP, Minister for Public Health at the Department of Health, to a question by Sarah Teather MP on "how many cases of diagnosed STDs there were in each Primary Care Trust (PCT) in London in each year since 1997". The answer was provided in the form of a long table showing the figures for 25 PCTs in London (Table 1 – [2])

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