| Title: |
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for public health and epidemiology |
| Keywords: |
Planning and programming
Health systems
Health indicators
Epidemiology
Disease prevention, control and elimination
|
| Country: |
Netherlands
|
| Institution: |
The Netherlands - Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam
|
| Course coordinator: |
Christina Mergenthaler
|
| Date start: |
2025-03-24 |
| Date end: |
2025-04-08 |
| About duration and dates: |
2 weeks full time. No preparation required. Applications to the course can be done as of one year prior to the course. Application deadline is 2 months before the start date of the course. If space is available and no visa required, students can apply until 4 weeks prior to the first course day |
| Classification: |
advanced optional
|
| Mode of delivery: |
Face to face
|
Course location:
KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
PO Box 95001, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tel: +31-20-5688256 / Website: http://www.kit.nl
TropEd Representative: Lisanne Gerstel |
|
| ECTS credit points: |
3 ECTS credits
|
SIT:
84 hours total:
Contact hours: 70 hours (including lectures [30%]; individual and group exercises [60%], Q&A sessions [10%] 2 hr exam preparation and presentation) and 14 hours self-study |
|
| Language: |
English
|
Description:
The aim of the course is to provide participants with the fundamental knowledge and skills enabling them to use QGIS (open source GIS software) to support health programme monitoring, evaluation and planning. Special attention is given to spatial data management and analysis using routine program data to strengthen disease program management. Participants will be familiarised with spatial analysis of epidemiological data, risk mapping and geographic access analysis.
At the end of the module the participants should be able to:
1. Explain the relation between health and geography and the role of GIS to analyse these relations
2. Operate a GIS (QGIS) and apply basic cartographic techniques to visualize health data
3. Create and interpret thematic health maps
4. Describe spatial patterns of health indicators and epidemiological data
5. Apply QGIS software and geo-processing methods for the planning and evaluation of performance and coverage of disease control programs
6. Know the ICT and operational requirements for successful implementation of GIS tools in public health |
|
Assessment Procedures:
A formative assessment of the comprehension of theory and practical skills obtained during the first week of the course will be made at the end of the first week. This assessment includes an online (blind) assessment using multiple choice and open questions. This is a non-graded assessment and is only intended to help students assess their progress.
Course completion requires students to upload the results of their daily practical exercises onto the KIT online learning platform. Students need to upload the results of no less than 90% of the daily assignments to be eligible to take the final exam, referred to below as the summative assessment. The daily exercises build skills in each of the learning objectives. The results referred to in the previous sentence are the mapped outputs of each daily exercise, accompanied by a text description of the methods applied to create the map, the spatial patterns observed, and how this should be interpreted to inform public health policy, in particular, resource allocation.
For tropEd students a summative assessment of the learning objectives will be made at the end of the course. This assessment consists of an oral presentation and defence. The summative assessment contributes to 100% of the total score;
Description of the summative assessment: To test GIS skills and the ability to correctly map and interpret outputs, participants will have to give a short (appx 7 -10 minutes) presentation showing the results of their own project or of one of the case-studies provided (one of the daily exercises). In the defense, they will be asked questions about the maps/ spacial patterns they presented and the consequences for disease control programs. Feedback is provided via a standard feedbacksheet.
Students who fail the summative assessment (oral exam), having a grade of less than 6.0/10 will be offered a re-sit within a month after the course ends. |
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Content:
This course aims to provide health professionals with a solid understanding and hands-on practice allowing them to use GIS in their daily work.
The first week of the course will focus on learning basic GIS theory and functions. Emphasis will be given to develop basic software operating skills and understanding of analytical approaches to analyse spatial data.
Specific topics further include:
- Basic GIS theory and principles including spatial data formats
- Introduction to QGIS (vs 3.34 or later) software package
- Spatial data management
- Using online data repositories and data extraction from cloud databases
- Data visualization and cartographic concepts
- Using geographic coordinate reference systems
- Introduction to essential geo-processing functions
The second week of the course will provide the opportunity to apply and extend the GIS skills that have been learned in the first week into a public health context. The course will address specific analytical problems in the field of planning and evaluating disease control programmes and space-time analyses of health data. Note: Throughout the course there will be facilitators in class fulltime to support students who experience difficulties in the use to the software. Exercises are developed in such a way that these can be intuitively followed along by providing stepwise manuals which students can follow. This will allow students to reflect of the process and outcomes as part of the exercise.
Topics include:
- Spatial analysis of geographic patterns of disease: point pattern analysis and geographic cluster analysis (linked to learning objective 4)
- Geographic access analysis: quantifying health service coverage (linked to learning objective 5)
- Introduction to Spatial Multi Criteria Risk Analysis using the MATCH approach (linked to learning objective 4, 6)
- Introduction to Digital (spatial) data-collection using ODK software system (linked to learning objective 6)
In both weeks guest speakers are invited to present applications of the use of GIS in disease control programmes and research projects.
The course will use the following open source and freely available software packages:
- QGIS 3.x open source GIS package.
- GeoDA (https://spatial.uchicago.edu/geoda; optional) |
|
Methods:
Methods:
This module is a face to face learning course in a classroom setting. Learning materials are shared exclusively via a Moodle based virtual learning environment (virtualgrounds.kit.nl), where students can also share results from their assignments and post questions to the other students and the course facilitators. Interaction between learners and the lecturer will be conducted both on the virtual learning environment and during the classroom sessions.
The main learning methods employed are:
1. Supervised learning where students make use of the materials posted on Virtual Grounds to meet the learning objectives of the course. Learning materials include:
-Readings; downloadable or scanned articles, eBooks.
-PowerPoints with extended notes, will be presented in online webinars and recorded ‘narrative’ will be made available for reference.
-Recorded mini-lectures (voice, image & PowerPoint slides).
-Short videos, including recordings of KIT staff, associates or partners on practical examples of GIS applications in public health.
-Self-assessment quizzes. For students to test their knowledge and understanding of topics covered.
-Self-reflection on the learning process and theoretic knowledge gained throughout the course will be obtained from the students via daily anonymous feedback forms available on the virtual learning platform.
2. Initiating, and responding to, discussion strands on the discussion board. The exercises and assignments include questions for reflection and discussion. Students can initiate discussion topics as well. Discussions will be student-led. Tutors will monitor the discussions and give feedback on key points. Students can also discuss topics in a chatroom (but will not be required to do so).
Interactions on the discussion board and in a chatroom will enable students to exchange research experiences and insights, ask questions for clarification and give peer feedback. Importantly, these interactions will enable the building of a community of learners; a social community which will significantly enhance the learning experience. Group work plays an important part in this course and each group will have their own private discussion forum that only they (and the tutor) can access and which will be used in the final summative assessment and grading.
3. Giving and receiving constructive peer feedback, in written form on the online learning platform or during plenary discussions in class. Students are encouraged to give feedback to and to help address questions from their peers.
Tutorial sessions will be held during the course to address technical issues and to provide guidance to the completion of assignments on a one-on-one basis. |
|
Prerequisites:
● Bachelor’s degree or equivalent academic training in either medicine or another field related to health care, such as health sciences, health economics, social sciences, or nursing
● A minimum of three years of health-related work experience in health systems, not limited to (organisation of) individual patient care
● English proficiency at the level of TOEFL 5.5 or IELTS 6.5 (certificate is not required)
● Computer and internet literacy; the participant should be able to use a computer access to wifi networks, and working-level understanding of Microsoft Office software (e.g. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Adobe (PDF). Students will be introduced to the e-learning platform.
Prior exposure to GIS, including practical skills in GIS are not needed to follow this course. |
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Attendance:
Maximum number of students: 25 (min 10) |
|
|
Selection:
First come, first served. |
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Fees:
Regular course fee €1.980,- tropEd fee €1.782,-
Early bird fee €1.584,- (when you pay more than 3 months before the course starts) |
|
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Scholarships:
There are no current specific scholarships for this course, for latest updates see |
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Major changes since initial accreditation:
The course previously had 2 summative assessments. This has been reduced to one summative assessment covering all LO in order to lower the workload on the assessments in this course and allow more focus on the learning process itself. |
|
Student evaluation:
In general the module is positively evaluated, students indicate the training to be (very) useful. Most participants indicated the course lived up to their expectations. The most important points for improvement raised by students are:
1. the heavy workload;
2. difficulties to simultaneously learn new concepts from geography, ICT and epidemiology;.
3. Request for more in depth training on the use of spatial analysis and spatial statistics. |
|
Lessons learned:
The interest in the course is still very high, yet the expectations and learning needs have shifted. Digital literacy has improved, yet students still struggle to interpret health maps. This limits the use of map outputs to translate to programme decisions. We will therefore add cases to interpret maps.
Students have become more critical regarding the course offer and supervision which can limit independent learning. We still experience that participants have very different levels of acquired competence at the end of the course which mainly depends on their own learning curve. Further diversifying our program with practical examples from the field has helped to accommodate the wide range of interests and to engage participants, so we will continue to offer a variety of exercises to learn individual concepts. Students can choose topics of interest which allows them to focus their learning to their specific needs. This is expected to relieve their perceived workload as well as the ability to absorb new concepts. |
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tropEd accreditation:
Accreditation in January 2008 in Cape Town; re-accredited in May 2012; re-accredited in October 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Re-accreditation in January 2019, in Lisbon; re-accredited in Febr 2024, online. Re-accredited in September 2024 in Edinburgh. This accreditation is valid until September 2029. |
|
Remarks:
None at this time |
|
| Email Address: |
c.mergenthaler@kit.nl |
| Date Of Record Creation: |
2019-02-15 08:56:56 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Of Record Release: |
2019-02-15 14:05:20 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Record Checked: |
2021-03-18 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Last Modified: |
2024-12-03 09:20:37 (W3C-DTF) |
