Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25628063›Full record

ArticleInternational journal of health geographics2015

Using geovisual analytics in Google Earth to understand disease distribution: a case study of campylobacteriosis in the Czech Republic (2008-2012).

Lukáš Marek, Pavel Tuček, Vít Pászto

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Article in International journal of health geographics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

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5citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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3 · Its place in the literature

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5 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Lukáš MarekDepartment of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Science, Palacky University in Olomouc, 17.listopadu 50, 77146, Olomouc, Czech Republic. lukas.marek@upol.cz.
Pavel TučekDepartment of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Science, Palacky University in Olomouc, 17.listopadu 50, 77146, Olomouc, Czech Republic. pavel.tucek@upol.cz.
Vít PásztoDepartment of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Science, Palacky University in Olomouc, 17.listopadu 50, 77146, Olomouc, Czech Republic. vit.paszto@gmail.com.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundVisual analytics aims to connect the processing power of information technologies and the user's ability of logical thinking and reasoning through the complex visual interaction. Moreover, the most of the data contain the spatial component. Therefore, the need for geovisual tools and methods arises. Either one can develop own system but the dissemination of findings and its usability might be problematic or the widespread and well-known platform can be utilized. The aim of this paper is to prove the applicability of Google Earth™ software as a tool for geovisual analytics that helps to understand the spatio-temporal patterns of the disease distribution.

methodsWe combined the complex joint spatio-temporal analysis with comprehensive visualisation. We analysed the spatio-temporal distribution of the campylobacteriosis in the Czech Republic between 2008 and 2012. We applied three main approaches in the study: (1) the geovisual analytics of the surveillance data that were visualised in the form of bubble chart; (2) the geovisual analytics of the disease's weekly incidence surfaces computed by spatio-temporal kriging and (3) the spatio-temporal scan statistics that was employed in order to identify high or low rates clusters of affected municipalities. The final data are stored in Keyhole Markup Language files and visualised in Google Earth™ in order to apply geovisual analytics.

resultsUsing geovisual analytics we were able to display and retrieve information from complex dataset efficiently. Instead of searching for patterns in a series of static maps or using numerical statistics, we created the set of interactive visualisations in order to explore and communicate results of analyses to the wider audience. The results of the geovisual analytics identified periodical patterns in the behaviour of the disease as well as fourteen spatio-temporal clusters of increased relative risk.

conclusionsWe prove that Google Earth™ software is a usable tool for the geovisual analysis of the disease distribution. Google Earth™ has many indisputable advantages (widespread, freely available, intuitive interface, space-time visualisation capabilities and animations, communication of results), nevertheless it is still needed to combine it with pre-processing tools that prepare the data into a form suitable for the geovisual analytics itself.

Indexed as

ComprehensionGeographic MappingSpatio-Temporal AnalysisAdolescentAdultAgedAged, 80 and overCampylobacter InfectionsChildChild, PreschoolCzech RepublicFemaleGeographic Information SystemsHumansInfantInfant, Newborn

Identifiers

PMID25628063
PMCPMC4328415

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.