Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay

Geographic Information System
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Geographic Information System
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer that collects, stores, manages, analyzes, checks, manipulates, and displays data based on a specific geographical location. Indeed, it integrates different data types and analyzes their spatial location. A GIS organizes information into layers of visualizations using three-dimensional scenes or maps. In particular, it is a crucial tool for mapping and special analysis for health applications. A GIS is useful in helping individuals to understand public health. The primary objective of mapping data using a GIS is to know health issues that affect various populations and their trends. Disease mapping using GIS has been a significant step in improving healthcare services worldwide. GIS is an essential tool in the medical field since it shows populations that are vulnerable to specific diseases.
GIS is important in the healthcare field. Specifically, it plays a vital role in determining when and where to intervene. Additionally, it enhances the improvement of patient care, maintains patient data confidentiality, increase medical service accessibility, and facilitates the implementation of cost-effective modes of delivery (Magnuson & Fu, 2013). A GIS helps in identifying trends in health by mapping and geo-referencing the demographic data, such as disease type, workplace, and home address. Another contribution of the GIS is that it helps to track how an infectious disease is spreading. That data can help authorities or health corporations to prevent the spread of a contagious illness by restricting people to move in areas that are prone to the epidemic. Furthermore, a GIS can incorporate data from social media to determine the population that is affected by a specific disease using tweets or comments.
A GIS can be used to generate a choropleth, which is a thematic map with patterned or shaded areas that represent specific statistical variables of a particular population. For example, the map below shows the influenza surveillance report for the period 2019-2020 (CDC, 2020).

Figure 1: A Choropleth Map of Influenza Survei...