{"id":456922,"date":"2021-09-14T07:11:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T14:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=456922"},"modified":"2024-04-30T16:21:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T23:21:32","slug":"maps-inform-san-bernardino-county-public-health","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/maps-inform-san-bernardino-county-public-health","title":{"rendered":"How Maps Inform Public Health Decisions in San Bernardino County"},"author":811,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[731],"tags":[475842,279502,741,208702],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478532],"esri_blog_department":[478192],"class_list":["post-456922","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-county-services","tag-dashboards","tag-pandemic","tag-public-health","esri-blog-category-analytics","esri_blog_department-gis-for-good"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"San Bernardino County uses spatial analytics and smart maps to better understand the public health needs of communities it serves.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"In the largest county by area in the United States, an analyst team is using GIS to improve the health and well-being of every San Bernardino County resident.\r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>San Bernardino County launched one of California\u2019s first COVID-19 dashboards using GIS.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Analysts used smart maps to understand the reason for a decline in Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program services.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Custom GIS dashboards help each county department access data on demand.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"The Research, Assessment, and Planning (RAP) team at San Bernardino County Department of Public Health (SBCDPH) in California monitors the health and well-being of more than two million residents in the country\u2019s largest county by area. Already a big job before the COVID-19 pandemic, the work became more challenging when office shutdowns and stay-at-home orders affected all 25 programs that deliver services to people facing heightened needs. In addition to continued support of the programs that rely on daily analysis, the RAP team also developed one of the state\u2019s first <a href=\"https:\/\/covid19-sbcph.hub.arcgis.com\/\">COVID-19 tracking hubs<\/a> using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/state-local-government\/overview\">geographic information system<\/a> (GIS) technology.\r\n\r\nThe county also understands the value of a geospatial lens for public health programs beyond tracking the pandemic. One recent project investigated the reason for a nearly decade-long decline in participation in the county\u2019s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. Analysts created a smart map showing how far and how people must travel to reach their local WIC clinics, enabling officials to determine better placements for the sites to improve accessibility.\r\n\r\nThe initiative is part of a larger countywide goal to be more transparent both internally and with the public about how data informs decisions. Lap Le, statistical analyst at SBCDPH, explained how his team uses geospatial technology to analyze people and places and communicate the decision-making process.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have all this data, and it\u2019s the primary driver in terms of an evidence-based approach to making decisions to positively affect the community,\u201d Le said. \u201cBut at the same time, we also need to provide the data so that the public can understand what is driving those kinds of decisions.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":456972,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/5e0713a854484391b9ae93f0c8c6971c"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3><strong>An Evidence-Based Approach<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nFor more than 35 years, the WIC program in San Bernardino County has provided families with access to healthy foods, nutrition education, and community resources as part of the larger federal program. Since 2013, the number of program participants among eligible residents has been steadily declining, with a sharp drop in participation starting in January 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.\r\n\r\nWhen Le and his team began their WIC analysis, they started by interviewing clinic staff who believed one of the key barriers to participation was people\u2019s ability to easily get to the clinic either by foot or public transportation.\r\n\r\nLe explained, \u201cAt the ground level, when you talk to the clinic staff, they already understand where the needs lie. But we needed some solid evidence to justify certain moves or relocate clinics.\u201d\r\n\r\nTeam members decided to map where current and past program participants lived throughout the county in relation to the clinics. They used GIS to display the aggregated data on a map. This allowed them to quickly understand where most of their participants lived without revealing street addresses or other confidential data."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":456982,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/f0ac2a1e335b4981ad889545b924dfc9"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Serene Ong, GIS analyst II for SBCDPH, explained that their next step was designed to test the hypothesis they had gathered from clinic staff. \u201cThen we thought, \u2018Okay. Is it easy or difficult for these participants to get to our clinics?\u2019 So we created visual buffers on the map that indicated half-mile and one-mile walking distances around each clinic.\u201d They also added a map layer that displays all the bus routes in the area to understand whether participants who lived further from each location had the option to take public transportation to their appointments.\r\n\r\nUltimately, the county used the information to tailor decisions about where WIC clinics should be located to best serve the needs of the community. \u201cOur analysis is what drove the decision to move some of the clinics to a denser location and then remove certain clinics where there's less of a need,\u201d Le said.\r\n\r\nOng hopes that the next phase of the project will include mapping the density of potential participants for the program so that WIC can do a better job reaching communities that need these services.\r\n<h3><strong>COVID-19 Accelerates Public Health Digital Transformation <\/strong><\/h3>\r\nBoth Ong and Le joined SBCDPH in 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began. One of their first projects together was creating an interactive dashboard to share information about the spread of the virus in the county.\r\n\r\nLike many other local governments throughout the US, county officials were initially getting daily updates via a PDF document. The analysts used GIS to aggregate the information, pulling data from the California Department of Public Health\u2019s\u00a0Reportable Disease Information Exchange\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdph.ca.gov\/Programs\/CID\/DCDC\/Pages\/CalREDIE.aspx\">CalREDIE<\/a> database to automatically update the dashboard daily. The team supplements state metrics with county-specific data.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen the dashboard was first published, other counties wanted to have discussions about our workflow, how we update the data, and how we structure all the components,\u201d Ong said."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":456992,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/f37ae586782242829ac8afea545248f4"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Since the beginning of 2020, the dashboard has grown and changed significantly to better serve its users. \u201cWe get a lot of feedback both internally as well as from the public, so we're always improving and making innovations to the dashboard to make it more user-friendly and interactive. It\u2019s our goal to keep making it better for everyone,\u201d Le said. One example is the addition of a schools tab where users can view what\u2019s going on in each school district.\r\n\r\nThrough their experience creating and optimizing the COVID-19 dashboard, team members have been able to apply lessons and best practices to other data projects within the county. They\u2019ve created dashboards for various programs and taught teams how to interact with the data themselves. \u201cNow, instead of having each of the program stakeholders making requests, we can anticipate needs and have the data readily available,\u201d Le explained.\r\n\r\nThe county uses smart maps and dashboards for a range of projects\u2014from addressing vaccine hesitancy to <a href=\"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/f37ae586782242829ac8afea545248f4\">improving efficiency for inspectors in the field<\/a>. According to Le, county officials were initially hesitant to display any data visually. \u201cEventually, we made a few maps to show them how useful it is in terms of data display and representation instead of just using tables and charts. When it's convenient or when it's doable, we always use a map to represent our data, just to make it easier to interpret. Initially, there was a lot of pushback.\u201d\r\n\r\nLe paused and then added, \u201cBut we convinced them otherwise.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn more about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/health\/overview\">health and human services professionals apply GIS<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<em>Author note<\/em>: The RAP team would like to offer special thanks to Chris Aquino, Anthony Arce, and Michael Castro for their invaluable contribution including scripted automation and streamlining of the processes necessary for the daily updates of the county\u2019s COVID-19 and vaccination dashboards.\u00a0 And notably, the RAP team thanks Jake Campbell for his leadership and guidance to success in leveraging Esri technology to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Maps Inform Public Health Decisions in San 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