Home > Geospatial Application Papers > Health > Overview


Health GIS in India


Future of Health GIS in India
Many health programmes are now showing a great deal of interest in GIS applications, which definitely is a healthy sign. However, the role played by vendors in this regard is something to be concerned about. Aggressive marketing strategies by them leads to prospective health GIS users being flooded with advanced modules of GIS software, which they might not require at all. Also, the user is likely to get confused as to what software is actually required in the organisation for its scope of work . It has been observed that in some cases the entire equipment is lying idle for want of trained and skilled manpower. To create a successful GIS community, vendors would have to play a positive and a truly healthy role by providing objective -oriented and appropriate technical know-how to prospective users.

Some key issues related to Health GIS in India
  1. Data sharing: Health being a humanitarian subject, all other projects who have developed digital maps should share their data sets for health mapping purposes. DANLEP has already set up a commendable example in this respect by sharing its data with other development projects. Health being an interdisciplinary subject, needs inputs from socio economic, environment and landuse aspects. Such data generation is beyond the scope of any health sector programme and needs only to be provided by the respective departments.


  2. National Health GIS: It is high time we have a national Health GIS system in place. GIS as a planning and management tool can substantially help in reducing the monitoring and implementation costs of health sector programmes.


  3. Training: Health administrators should be imparted necessary training in GIS use.


  4. Planning: DANLEP's experience suggests that GIS can be very helpful in designing campaigns, IEC activities, integration studies and awareness programmes. It is observed that leprosy and TB endemicity is prevalent in tribal areas. Studies in relation to poverty level, tribal settlements and accessibility have helped in optimising location and reallocation of service delivery centres.


  5. Identification of Hotspots: DANLEP has undertaken studies to identify health hotspots by studying disease profiles across Orissa for multiple diseases. DANLEP suggests that more studies should be conducted throughout the country to identify health hotspots in order to evolve a comprehensive health management programme.
Internet and Health GIS
Health-gis@who.ch is a very useful email group for health GIS users. Mapinfo-L and Arcview-L also provide useful information regarding health GIS from time to time.

Conclusion
Health GIS is here to stay. DANLEP has established a successful health GIS in not only its main office but also in all its three operating states. These three nodes are providing excellent support to the local government health department. The authors feel that these success stories should be replicated in all those states which are yet to use GIS for health. With the advent of Internet mapping, information and data dissemination have become a lot more easy-facilitating a "National Helath GIS" not a distant reality





Page 2 of 2
| Previous |