Austin Public Health Enhances CASPER Surveys with GIS Technology

Assessing the community’s needs in a time of emergency is a key part of any public health organization’s responsibilities. Often, the best method to assess the needs of the community following an emergency is by conducting a Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER). The CASPER is a relatively cost-effective option that can provide invaluable, accurate, and timely data at the household level to create a real-time picture for decision-makers, public health leaders, and emergency managers. Data collected provides insight about community awareness, opinions, needs, and concerns for any possible topic, including climate change, health, community services, and emergency preparedness.

With these benefits in mind, when the City of Austin’s Office of Resilience approached Austin Public Health (APH), the official health department of the City of Austin and Travis County, Texas, about a CASPER, it was an easy decision to conduct the CASPER using geographic information system (GIS) technology and solutions to streamline the assessment. The GIS tools used allowed employees to:

·       Identify populations at increased risk of harm due to a disaster.

·       Quickly prepare staff and volunteers for conducting the survey.

·       Visualize the results for easy data-driven decision-making in times of emergency.

·       Share the data and visualize results for the community.

Early in the planning process, the CASPER’s objectives were to understand the experiences and needs of residents with respect to severe weather, inform and improve resiliency hubs, ensure emergency preparedness, and develop resources to enhance community resiliency.

This led to the Resilience Hub Network—a series of community-focused physical facilities that offer day-to-day services and support the community before, during, and after a disaster. Based on community meetings and resident feedback, six facilities were picked to be the pilot locations for the Resilience Hub Network. All these locations are located within the Eastern Crescent with the goal of expanding to the entire city.
 

The City of Austin’s Office of Equity explained that the area most vulnerable to displacement is informally referred to as the “Eastern Crescent.” It is shaped like a backward letter “C” and is loosely defined by three highways: I-35 on the west (especially north of the Colorado River), US 183 on the north and east, and south of US 71. Generations of people who have lived in the Eastern Crescent have suffered forced displacement into the area, followed by segregation, discriminatory lending practices, and disinvestment. More recently, the Eastern Crescent has suffered gentrification and new cycles of displacement out of the area. 

Typically, organizations conduct CASPER surveys using pen and paper as outlined in the methodology. However, it was important for Austin Public Health to exercise new GIS tools in “blue sky days” and test the methods to identify and track which areas to survey.

With a clear goal in mind, GIS professionals at Austin Public Health decided to deploy the Community Health Assessment solution from ArcGIS Solutions. This solution delivers a set of capabilities that help plan community health surveys through ArcGIS Pro, collect survey responses, and monitor key indicators as the assessment occurs. ArcGIS Solutions are a collection of preconfigured GIS tools tailored to meet an organization's specific needs, making them easy to deploy and get started.

From helping develop the plan for the surveys to easily enabling epidemiologists and executives to monitor key indicators as the assessment occurs, it is an out-of-the-box solution to better manage a CASPER. Once the solution was deployed, the GIS team was able to set up cluster selection and random selection of households to survey. Then the GIS team deployed ArcGIS Survey123, which removes the pen and paper process and implements a user-friendly interface for CASPER volunteers to conduct surveys in the community.
 

Then, using ArcGIS Dashboards, the completed survey data was instantly uploaded and available for public health officials to understand progress and make informed decisions.
 

The results of the CASPER assessment provided valuable information for Austin Public Health and the Office of Resilience. Staff found that of the households surveyed, a large percentage were vulnerable to heat or had a history of heat-related illness. Many households also did not feel prepared for a disaster. They also shared that text messages were the most effective way to communicate in times of emergency.
 

To inform the community about these results and illustrate their process, the team shared the results using ArcGIS StoryMaps. This provides an easy-to-understand, dynamic viewing experience for the public and showcases the collected data in a way that promotes action and can influence policy and prevention response.

Using GIS to aid Austin Public Health’s CASPER survey has provided a more accurate representation of community needs and trained the entire CASPER team with essential practice to deploy the tools during an emergency. With the Community Health Assessment solution, planning, managing, and administering the survey reduced staff time and streamlined workflows that followed the survey. Spatial analysis ensured a meticulous deployment of the survey, providing staff with a better understanding of their community’s preparedness and needs.