first published week of: 08/15/2016
A map from Esri showing vulnerability to Zika across the U.S. using data on temperature, precipitation, population and more.
Geographic information systems are becoming a tool for multiple stages in governments' fight against disease.
Governments have used maps for everything from local economic development to snow plow tracking — now they’re also using it to fight the spread of the Zika virus.
Rather, U.S. government entities have been using the concept of geographic information systems (GIS) to help manage disease outbreaks and public health crises for a long time. But the open data movement and improved GIS platforms have helped make those maps a lot more useful.
Today, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is using GIS to both track the spread of Zika in the U.S. and predict where it might cause the most damage in the future. The virus, carried by a couple species of mosquito, has raised fears as it comes to the U.S. after medical professionals linked it to birth defects in other countries. continued…