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Stepping forward for challenges in Health, Safety and Environment in GIS perspective
Kashif Siddiqi
Project Manager, Institute of Geographical Information System, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
Prof. Graham Clarke
Professor, Department of Geography, University of Leeds, England
ABSTRACT
Environmental Health and Safety is a key player of sustainable development. Pakistan as a developing country has to follow the foot steps of developed countries. Economics play a vital role in setting up of standards. This paper is a guideline for utilization of modern technological resources for developing standards economically through precedence of developed countries like UK. A review is carried out to see the market inclination of Health & Safety in public and private sector in UK, type of data available and its linkage to geographical information system (GIS) with an objective of defining a future course of action. Two separate approaches have been adopted, firstly market analysis of health & safety sector including Environmental Protection expenditures to see the growing potential and secondly, suggesting an exclusive GIS frame work for Health & Safety at Work for an Environmental Health Practitioner (EHP). The results show that scope of GIS is enormous in Health & Safety sector, although much of GIS work is available in medical & health sector but the potential of GIS in Health & Safety at work sector exclusively is not fully discovered and there is a room of improvement. Technological solutions are available in the market that uses GIS at the backdrop and can be utilized at micro and macro level for better planning in carrying out Health & Safety Inspection.
1. Introduction
The tremendous potential of GIS to benefit the health care industry is just now beginning to be realized. Both public and private sectors are developing innovative ways to harness the data integration and spatial visualization power of GIS (Barnes, S. and A. Peck, 1994). The types of companies and organizations adopting GIS span the health care spectrum--from public health departments and public health policy and research organizations to hospitals, medical centers, health insurance organizations and private environmental health flexible resourcing companies. While health care professionals in the public health sector were early adopters of GIS and continue to find new and innovative uses for this technology, the use of GIS in the private health sector has grown substantially in the last decade (Gattrell, A 1998). Scope of GIS is analyzed in health, safety and environmental protection at micro level to determine its applicability.
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