HealthLandscape’s Michael Topmiller named an Interdisciplinary Research Leader

As part of one of only 15 three-person teams selected, I’m excited to be named an Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Fellow, a new program led by the University of Minnesota with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I’ll be joined by researchers and community leaders from across the country to collaborate and innovate to solve persistent challenges and advance a Culture of Health—one that places well-being at the center of every aspect of life.

Along with my colleagues, Jamie-Lee Morris (New Prospect Baptist Church) and Farrah Jacquez (Psychology Department, University of Cincinnati), our project will focus on identifying community assets and improving early childhood health in two neighborhoods in Cincinnati.  Our approach is place-based, and will utilize a variety of methods (including GIS) within a community-based participatory research (CBPR) orientation. While the details of the project are yet to be determined, my role in the project will involve utilizing innovative geospatial “bright spot” methods and participatory mapping to identify community assets. Integrating geospatial and mapping approaches with my team’s expertise in engaging community members and developing community research teams will help ensure that our approach is place-based, community-driven, and culminates in real improvements in early childhood health in our communities.

As our project moves forward I’ll share more details on our progress. The map below shows the location of the 15 amazing teams taking part in the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program.

Participant Map

Michael Topmiller

HealthLandscape

HealthLandscape Attends AAFP Family Medicine Experience (FMX)

This week, the American Academy of Family Physicians, our parent organization, is holding their annual meeting, the FamilyMedicine Experience or FMX, in Orlando, Fla at the Orange County Convention Center.  Last year was the first year of this new type of meeting offering a more interactive and customizable experience, because “as health care becomes about more than patient care, this meeting is expanding to serve you with new topics and techniques.”

HealthLandscape is an innovation of the AAFP which also focuses on that portion of health care that is more than patient care.  HealthLandscape is both a team of people and an online mapping and data platform.  The team is made up of sociologists, informaticians and geographers with wide-ranging interests in that “more than patient care space.”  We perform research and lead projects related to access to care and supportive services; health workforce distribution; population health; hot, cold and bright spotting, and others.  The HealthLandscape team also develops, administers, and markets geospatial analysis software tools and professional services.  

HealthLandscape, the platform, is an interactive, web-based mapping platform that allows health professionals, policy makers, academic researchers, and planners to:

• Combine, analyze, and display information in ways that make it easy to understand health and the forces that affect it;
• Improve health outcomes through informed decision-making; and
• Reduce costs and improve the quality of health and health care.

The HealthLandscape platform brings together various sources of health, socio-economic, and environmental information in a convenient, central location to help answer questions about and improve health and health care.  HealthLandscape can be used to create visual advocacy tools and maps from publicly available, private, and organization-owned datasets to discover community characteristics that can be shared with health professionals, policy makers, and legislators.

We hope to see you at FMX this year to tell, and show, you more about HealthLandscape.  We will be in the Expo Hall at Booth 549 Wednesday, September 21 from 4:30-6:30 PM, Thursday, September 22 from 10 AM - 4 PM and Friday, September 23 from 10 AM - 3 PM.

Not attending FMX this year?  Learn more about our mapping tools at one of our webinars or visit our revamped website at www.healthlandscape.org.

Jennifer Rankin

Sr. Manager for Research and Product Services

HealthLandscape  

People are Attracted to Certain Geographies

Places draw people in.  People search for cool ocean breezes on tropical beaches or the challenge of climbing a mountain or the diversity of life in a rainforest or a large city.  Beyond aesthetics, financial opportunities of a particular landscape can be the main attraction- water source, raw materials for building, or even the kinetic energy of a waterfall.  People have been drawn to the Mississippi River over the years for the many things it has to offer and in Minneapolis they benefit from the only natural waterfall on the entire river.  In the late 19th Century, people came in droves to Minneapolis to take advantage of the St. Anthony Falls to work in industries such as textiles, saw mills and flour mills.

I, myself, am attracted to such geographies as mountains, rainforests, water networks, and rocky outcroppings.  On a recent vacation to Minnesota, where I learned about the St. Anthony Falls, I also visited the Boundary Waters Canoe Area which is a designated wilderness area. I’ve been to various parks and wilderness areas, and couldn’t help but feel an appreciation for the lack of crowds and buildings, and the abundance of parking (for the canoe). I like these kinds of places because they put a smile on my face, they’re calming, beautiful, and they remind me that not everything is about technology

Place matters to me because of opportunity and availability. I visit these places because they provide a means of adventure and immersion. In 2009, I moved to the Washington, D.C. area solely for the lucrative job market.  Seven years later, I’ve come to appreciate that it hasn’t only been the positions that I’ve held that have kept me here. It’s been the environmental diversity that allows me to explore new interests, the plethora of ethnicities that have opened my palate to new flavors, the events calendars in and around D.C. that’s always full, and constantly meeting others who have also uprooted their lives to live in the D.C. area.

HealthLandscape is an application with a variety of valuable tools that help users explore place. For more information on HealthLandscape’s products see our webinars at:

http://www.healthlandscape.org/webinar-training.cfm

David Grolling

GIS Strategist

HealthLandscape

2016 UDS Mapper Updates

On August 26th, we rolled out the newest version of the UDS Mapper with updated and new data, and new UDS Mapper Mobile functionality. The UDS Mapper is the premier tool built on the HealthLandscape platform and is designed to visualize areas of potential need for new federally funded health centers. Check out these new features and updates:

Improved User Support:

• User Support
• We now have a chat tool in order to help you as you are using the tool; all of the user support tutorials will be updated during September

Updated Data:

• UDS data
• Updated to 2015 reporting year data
• Population Indicators
• Demographic layers updated
• Basemaps and Optional Layers
• County Subdivisions
• Primary, Dental and Mental Health Care HPSAs
• Uninsurance by Income Level.
• Due to changes in data availability the layers for uninsured below 100% FPL and uninsured between 100%-400% FPL could not be updated and have been removed; the other three layers have been updated

Dental Care HPSAs

New Data and Features

• New Mobile UDS Mapper Functionality
• Generate a list of all Health Care Facilities within your selected Area
• New Demographic Data
• New Age and Social Environment breakdowns in the Main Maps tool
• New 2 year % Change in Layers for Insurance Categories
• New Health Care Facilities

• Locations where there are other than Primary Care National Health Service Corps (NHSC) providers
• Coming Soon- Veterans Administration health care sites

% Population Aged 18-64

Upcoming Webinars:

Introduction to the UDS Mapper:

(appropriate for all users of the UDS Mapper)

Monday, September 19, 2:00PM - 3:00PM (Eastern Time)   Register

What's New in the UDS Mapper:

Wednesday, September 28, 11:00AM - 12:00PM (Eastern Time)   Register

Claire Meehan

User Engagement Specialist

HealthLandscape

For more information or to just begin using the UDS Mapper, please visit www.udsmapper.org and plan on attending one of our free webinars!