ESRI Honors Award-Winning Health GIS Programs and Projects

Redlands, California―ESRI is pleased to announce the winners of the 2006 Communication, Service, and Vision Awards given to users of geographic information system (GIS) technology in the health and human services fields. Denver Health Managed Care (Denver, Colorado), the World Health Organization (WHO) ( Geneva, Switzerland), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (Bethesda, Maryland) received the awards during ESRI's annual Health GIS Conference held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, in October.

Accepting the 2006 Communication Award was Brian Altonen, quality analyst for Denver Health Managed Care. This award is given to an organization participating in the conference's Map Gallery for the poster that best communicates concepts, illustrates methods, creatively integrates data, and is relevant to health and human services. Altonen's award-winning poster, titled Applications of GIS to West Nile Virus Surveillance Programs: A Study of Disease Ecology, illustrated how geospatial analysis of mosquito trap results, dead bird sightings, and wetlands is used to pinpoint infected mosquito breeding areas.

The 2006 Service Award, given to the WHO Public Health Mapping and GIS program, recognizes an organization that uses GIS technology to serve the needs of the health and human services community beyond the call of duty. Since 1993, the WHO program has led a global partnership promoting and implementing GIS to support decision making for a wide range of infectious disease and public health programs. Accepting the award on behalf of WHO was Philippe Veltsos of the WHO Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

NCI received the 2006 Vision Award, presented to the organization that has gone beyond the traditional use of GIS within a health or human services organization. NCI was recognized for its ongoing GIS Database Development program, innovative spatial data analysis, development of geovisualization tools, and communication of georeferenced statistics. Accepting the award on behalf of NCI was David Stinchcomb, geographer with NCI.

“We are deeply honored to receive this award from ESRI,” said Linda Williams Pickle, Ph.D., senior mathematical statistician and coordinator of geographic research in the statistical research and applications branch of NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Surveillance Research Program, upon hearing of the award. “NCI has long recognized that cancer rates vary geographically, having published cancer atlases for over 30 years. As GIS tools for spatial analyses such as cluster identification and spatial statistical modeling have become more widely available, we have incorporated them into our standard analytic practices. Place is important for cancer studies because of geographic differences in environmental exposures, cultural attitudes toward risky behaviors and preventive health care, local public health policies, availability of services by socioeconomic level, and the means by which residents obtain health information. Because of this, GIS is now a primary tool for NCI staff.”

“It is a real pleasure to work with such outstanding organizations,” says Bill Davenhall , global manager, Health and Human Services Solutions, ESRI. “We are truly honored to play a part in recognizing these winners for their innovation, dedication, and commitment to service.” Established in 2001, the awards recognize organizations that accomplish outstanding achievements with the use of GIS technology in the areas of health or human services.

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