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Application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for analysing and Planning of Reproductive Health Services in Pattani Province
2 Methodologies
The objective of this pilot project was to develop the system prototype of the Geographic Information System (GIS) for analyzing and planning of the public health services in Pattani Province. For the initial system prototype development, it aimed to reduce Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) by using GIS as a tool for analyzing and seeking clusters of houses of pregnant women. The GIS analysis would be used for a health plan development to encourage pregnant women to deliver at the government hospitals instead of using Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) services. After completion of the pilot project, it aimed to extend the GIS for strengthening RH and other public health services in the other areas e.g. Adolescent RH, Reinforcement Male Involvement in RH, Mother and Child Health Care, Sexual Education, Epidimeology, Vaccination, and Information, Education and Advocacy, etc. Further more, the pilot project also aimed to build up GIS database and link it with existing public health database or known by the Public Health Ministry as HCPro, and analyze GIS data and tabular data of HCPro together.
In achieving the objectives of the project, methodologies applied for the study were as followed:
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Identify the scope of work and study area, discuss about needs and expectations of Pattani PPHO in GIS applications in the field of public health services.
- Investigate and acquire secondary data especially maps, aerial photographs of the selected area and other related spatial data. Topographic maps at the scale of 1:50,000 were used to locate the area and to delineate boundary for purchasing aerial photographs. Aerial photographs at the scale of 1:15,000 were purchased from the Royal Thai Survey Department.
- Investigate Pattani PPHO computer facilities, and HcPro database. It was found that the PPHO was well-equipped with computer facilities and the HcPro database could be linked directly to GIS database.
- Field visits to various Tambon health centres suggested by the Pattani PPHO in order to select study area for the pilot project. It was finally decided to select four villages in Napradu Sub-district as the study area for the pilot project.
- Investigate and acquire GIS software and GPS to be used in the pilot project.
- Provide training and on-the-job training to the health officers in concepts of mapping, aerial photos and GIS, and the use of GPS in geographic survey. A group of health officers who received GIS training were expected to serve as a GIS expert team of Pattani Province.
- Interpret aerial photos. Aerial photos of Napradu at the scale of 1:15,000 and 1:4,000 were interpreted. Information extracted from aerial photo interpretation included land use, household location, road network, significant places and water body.
- Conduct a ground truth survey using GPS for checking, verification and updating data. This was to check the correctness of aerial photo interpretation and to update data. Aerial photos were geocoded using GPS technology and manual differential GPS (DGPS).
- Conduct related socio-economic survey. Village health volunteers conducted a social survey using questionnaires in every household in four villages. Details of questionnaire contained general household and respondents’ information, pregnancy and ANC, and roles and involvement of husbands in taking care of their wives during pregnancy, after delivery, and in sharing housework. During field survey, village health volunteers also collected data on housing conditions of respondents by observations.
- Digitize and edit data [build-up GIS database] using GIS software. Arc/Info and ArcView were used for data input. Several layers were created for GIS database such as land use map, road map, and location of houses.
- Link HcPro non-spatial to the spatial database. The main purpose of the Pattani PPHO was to link HcPro to the GIS database for analyses. Some common fields for linking non-spatial to spatial database were created. Output of household locations of four villages were shown in image 2.
- Analyse GIS data and socio-economic data. Information on pregnant women were extracted from HcPro, then linked to GIS database to seek and visualize their house locations. GIS technology was used to seek distances from these houses to locations of TBAs and health centres.
- Discuss other aspects of health plans with PPHO officers in order to prepare a health decision-making support system (DSS) using HcPro with GIS database.
- Conduct system testing.
Image 2: Household Locations
in Selected Villages, Na Pradu Sub-district
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