4.7 Communicating through geovisualisation of public health data

As we have seen from earlier in this unit, geovisualisation of data may be used for two different purposes. Firstly, it is possible to produce a great many graphics very quickly with modern software, and as the exploratory spatial data analysis resources suggest, sometimes such graphics can be used by an analyst to better understand the characteristics of a given data set. As such, geovisualisation is one of several tools that can be used by an analyst to better understand a data set. Secondly, alongside this, once an analyst has uncovered the key patterns in a given data set, he or she can then use geovisualisation to communicate these patterns to a wider audience. As such, the geovisualisation supports the presentation to others of a particular narrative (story) about the data set. This assignment is intended to support this second use of geovisualisation as a way of communicating the key patterns in a data set to others.

Activity

This activity seeks to develop your geovisualisation skills:

  • Choose one of the data sets from earlier in the module, or download your own data from elsewhere. Some suggested resources are provided below. Note that you must download data and map it yourself – you cannot just use an online interface which has already created maps, unless the interface allows you full control over all of the design decisions.
  • Within your chosen data set, identify one or more key spatial patterns that you think are important. For example, this could be a north-south trend in disease rates; an urban-rural disparity; it could be one or more unusual or outlying values for a particular location; or it could even be evidence of erroneous or implausible values.
  • Decide on a scenario under which you are presenting the data to an audience of your choosing. This could be local government representatives, healthcare professionals working in service delivery, or even the general public.
  • Produce a graphic according to sound scientific practice that illustrate the pattern you have identified in your chosen data set. Your graphic should use a geovisualisation technique and may comprise one or more graphical elements.

In the accompanying discussion board post, you should:

  • Briefly state your chosen data set and the audience / scenario that your graphics are targeted towards
  • Briefly describe the spatial pattern in the data that the graphics illustrate and justify your choice of technique for visualising the data

There is no need to write more than a paragraph or so on these issues in your board postings; then we will pick up on them in discussion activity.

Additional resources:

Please see these links for additional public health data that you can explore for this assignment:

https://data.gov.uk/dataset/standardised_mortality_ratios

http://www.localhealth.org.uk/

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/phe-data-and-analysis-tools

…and related boundaries

https://borders.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

…and this zip and data file contain further instructions on how to bring such data into ArcGIS (both Pro and Desktop) and link them to boundaries.

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