Maps4health? What is the connection between healthcare and maps? The 1854 London Cholera Outbreak map developed by Dr. John Snow is considered one of the very first example of Geographic Information System (GIS). Dr.Snow developed a sort of proto-GIS supporting his theory that cholera was a water-borne disease. His analysis showed a connection between number of cholera deaths and wells location.

By Paola Fava

This is just a very first example of the linkage between health and maps. Maps can be used for complex geographic analysis of health indicators but also simply to identify the exact location of health centers or healthcare services.

Particularly in emergency situations, such as the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa, maps were used to locate health facilities, laboratories, schools, wells and any other significant infrastructure that could provide information to support aid workers facing the emergency. Combining this information with other indicators such as population data, number of disease cases, etc… maps provided a better overview of the disease widespread and its effects. Here is an example of maps developed by WHO showing, on the left, the location of laboratories in the areas affected by Ebola Virus in 2015 and, on the right, the number of Ebola cases in October 2014.

Identifying the exact location of health facilities is not always an easy task, especially if using a top-down approach, asking government bodies, health authorities or organizations.

On this regard, healthsites.io is an interesting tool, that uses an alternative, bottom-up approach to identify healthcenters around the world, providing information such as their geographic position, services provided, number of full time/part time beds, staff availability, etc…The application is an opendata initiative, therefore freely available and anybody can contribute by using their Facebook or Twitter account.
It’s a project co-founded by Mark Herringer, Tim Sutton and Dražen Odobašić, and supported by many partners such as ICRC, MSF, HIF (International Hospital Federation), the Health Care in Danger project and HOT(Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team).

Healthsite.io can be particularly useful in emergency situation, (i.e.: in case of disease outbreaks or natural disasters) in order to have baseline data or assess damages or even, more importantly, to help people seeking for medical care. Of course, the main challenge is to verify the information and keep it updated but the network of organizations behind it, such as the Humanitarian OpenstreetMap Team (HOT), MSF and ICRC, is already a great start!

Photo credits:
Main photo: Ted Eytan
Photo1,2: WHO EbolaMaps
Photo3: Healthsites.io